Tamil Nadu - The Great Poll Opera

It’s Tamil Nadu’s first assembly election without its towering leaders. But the contest is still very much between the Dravidian heavyweights DMK and AIADMK. The national parties are likely to be bit players

- Amarnath K. Menon

SHORTLY AFTER DAYBREAK ON FEBRUARY 9, Vivekananda Krishnaveni Sasikala, released after four years in a Bengaluru jail on charges of corruption, returned to Chennai to a grand welcome by supporters as well as some of the ruling AIADMK (All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) leaders. At several places en route, well-wishers greeted the 66-year-old leader with firecrackers and flowers (one reason why the usual six-hour journey took almost a day). She also stopped at a few temples on the way. At one point, she was offered a garland so heavy that it took a crane to bring it to her side.

The breakaway AIADMK faction, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), and her loyalists within the main party, put on the show. “The party (AIADMK) faced several struggles in the past, too, but has still risen like a phoenix. Amma (the late J. Jayalalithaa) told us how to run the AIADMK for another 100 years after her, and continuing her legacy, I’ll live the rest of my life for the development of the party. The party is family and the family is party…all the children of Jayalalithaa are my children too,” Sasikala told supporters, projecting herself as the heir to Jayalalithaa in the run-up to the assembly election in Tamil Nadu in April-May.

The ruling AIADMK has reason to be worried. Its vote share has been on the decline in every election since 2011, hitting rock bottom at 18.7 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election (see The Poll Trend). Then, there’s the anti-incumbency from being 10 years in power. In a swift reprisal, therefore, the AIADMK expelled party members who had facilitated Sasikala’s return-from-jail welcome convoy, sending a clear signal that ‘Chinnamma’ (mother’s sister), as allies still call her reverentially, remains an outcast.