MDMK walks out of NDA : End of the Road for Tamil Nadu Allies

By Deepak Parvatiyar

December 9, 2014

The Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) has become the first ally to step out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The decision to this effect was taken at meeting of the party’s parliamentary board and high-level committee which passed a resolution to this effect in Chennai on Monday.

The reasons cited for MDMK – NDA breakup :

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi reneged on his promise made to the MDMK general secretary Vaiko that the BJP-led government would not support Sri Lanka and its President Mahinda Rajapaksa. (The MDMK claimed that the promise was made at the time of MDMK’s joining the NDA before the last General Elections).

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• Modi’s wishing Rajapaksa victory in the elections and also Rajapaksa’s December 9 visit to the Tirupati temple were condemnable.

• The BJP government ignored the people of Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery water issue and it allegedly gave permission to review safety aspects of the Mullaperiyar dam.

• The NDA government was not helping in solving the Tamil Nadu fishermen’s issue and the release of five death-row fishermen from Sri Lankan jail was a “drama” to “strengthen diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka”.

• The “Sanskritisation” of education by the Centre was condemnable.

Vaiko is a Known LTTE Sympathiser

The writing was on the wall for the MDMK-NDA split for quite some time now. The final nail in the coffin was apparently the call for the arrest of Vaiko by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy over the celebrations organised by the former across Tamil Nadu to mark the 60th birth anniversary of slain LTTE chief V Prabhakaran on November 26. Swamy even tweeted that the MDMK should quit the NDA alliance.

It has been a known fact that Vaiko is a known LTTE sympathiser. Besides, a sedition case against him is presently being heard at the additional sessions court in Chennai.

Vaiko’s move appears a well thought out plan in the wake of the fast changing political equations in Tamil Nadu after the conviction and arrest of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (AIADMK)supremo Jayaram Jayalalithaa – the first sitting chief minister to be jailed in disproportionate assets case, in September.

Regional Parties in Tamil Nadu are Re-Grouping to Fill in the Vacuum Created Following Jayalalithaa’s Departure

With a considerably weaker AIADMK that still rules the state, the ‘Dravida’ cause has emerged as a centripetal force for the regrouping of regional political forces in the state. Earlier, former Union Minister GK Vasan, had quit the Congress to float his own new outfit in November. Vaiko, sensing his opportunities, too had launched a frontal attack on Prime Minister Modi’s policies particularly his equations with Rajapaksa, ever since.

Ostensibly, all political parties and their leaders in the state are busy vying with each other to capitalise on the perceived vacuum created in the state politics following Jayalalithaa’s departure from the scene.

It is in this light that the BJP-Vaiko estrangement needs to be seen. The association with the NDA had not helped Vaiko much as his party could not win a single seat in the General Elections. Besides, it could take cue from the Haryana Janhit Congress, which like the MDMK had failed to win a single parliamentary seat, and was dumped by the BJP at the very last minute before the Haryana state elections

Other NDA Partners from TN Rethinking Political Options

Elections are still at a distance in Tamil Nadu and are due only in 2016. However, the political parties have already embarked on restructuring their priorities in the changed situation following Jayalalithaa’s arrest.

While DMDK has finally left the alliance, it would be interesting to watch the moves of the other NDA partners in the state — the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK). PMK’s only member of Parliament, Anbumani Ramodoss, as well as DMDK’s Vijayakanth who is the leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, have Chief Ministerial ambitions. While Vijayakanth has been quite vocal on heaping praise on PM Modi, the PMK had earlier this month, sided with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) to support Vaiko by condemning certain BJP leaders, who Vaiko claimed had issued veiled threats to him.

Can the PMK go the MDMK way? The party has already resorted to some hard bargaining with the BJP by openly declaring its intention to field Anbumani as the CM candidate in the 2016 Assembly elections – something that does not go well with the BJP which did not field any CM face in the recent assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand!

DMK is Wooing MDMK

It is significant that Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham’s (DMK) treasurer MK Stalin as well as Vaiko were invited to PMK leader S Ramodoss’s granddaughter’s wedding on November 2, this year. Their meeting had fuelled enough speculations then on the prospect of a DMK-backed ‘mega alliance’ in near future. Already the DMK Chief M. Karunanidhi had extended an invitation to the MDMK to join the alliance and said that he would be happy if the MDMK did so.

Pertinently after its losses to Jayalalithaa in the 2011 state Assembly elections and thereafter in the 2014 General Elections, the DMK has sensed an opportunity now and is talking of a ‘mega alliance’ formation in the state. Any such alliance would mean that the MDMK and DMK face the next assembly elections together for the first time ever after Vaiko was expelled from the DMK about 20 years ago.

Much has changed since then. Both Vaiko and Karunanidhi were part of the NDA too during Vajpayee’s regime. However, Vaiko refused to ally with the DMK over the issue of seat sharing in 2001 assembly elections in the state and rather preferred to side with the AIADMK then. However, Jayalalithaa, as Chief Minister, did not spare him for his pro-LTTE views and he served a 19 month sentence under the now-repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Time and again Vaiko has spurned the DMK offers for a truce. Upon his release from jail, the DMK president Karunanidhi went all the way to Vellore to welcome him but Vaiko refused any alliance with the DMK for the 2006 assembly elections either. He kept away from the 2011 state elections and sided with the BJP in the 2014 General Elections.

Will he finally yield to Karunanidhi’s overtures? The TN politics, indeed, is in for some interesting developments.