20 hours ago
TN remains an enigma for the saffron lobby
As NDA 3.0 completes its first anniversary today, the perennially in election mode apparatus of the alliance must already be working overtime for the slate for the later part of the year. Bihar, one of the states readying for the Assembly elections, is slowly but surely seeing changes, ostensibly in favour of an overwhelming saffron win at present. Whatever that may be, the 2026 elections must be making the war rooms of various political parties working with a different game plan as it is where the INDIA bloc sees its chances. Tamil Nadu, by this time, next year would have had a new government in place. The question is, which party will get to run the state which is now seeing aggressive posturing by NDA and counter attacks by the DMK government. Once a formal alliance was sealed by the Centre with the principal Opposition party and old ally, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the BJP must have felt relieved that it has made the first move, well.
Given that the MGR-founded party is facing an identity and existential crisis in its 53rd year of existence, the cobbling together of the alliance with smaller parties being wooed establishes the fact that the saffron party is happy to ride piggyback on the Dravidian big brother this time around. Amit Shah's latest statement that the new alliance will sweep the 2026 polls has not entirely been rejected by the political pundits and as expected, pooh poohed by the DMK leaders. Its top-rung icons say that if the Dravidian ideology resonates with the people, it is nigh impossible for the BJP to set its foot in Tamil Nadu. While a few still consider the earlier elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as a 'lost opportunity' for the BJP to have made inroads into the Tamil psyche, the highly unpopular way the administration has gone about its business has made the average public take a critical look at the goings-on in the State.
Dynastic politics – that of Udayanidhi being groomed to take over from the present CM, M K Stalin - is still being helplessly accepted by the party machinery and followers as a 'natural' progression of the first family in retaining power. What is not left unnoticed is the increased presence of Karunanidhi's daughter and the CM's step-sister Kanimozhi in the central scheme of things, Stalin's blow hot blow cold with Modi government and the stench of corruption in the governance of the State which has been allowed to grow (the TASMAC case, for one), for a surgical strike later by the central machinery, closer to the poll dates. It is surely a work in progress for the non-DMK formation, but it is a known fact that the DMK has till date never managed a second successive stint in office. Will they break the jinx this time or will a currently docile anti-DMK alliance spring a surprise? If it is the final chance for the AIADMK to retain its political relevance, it is also the best-ever opportunity for the BJP in nearly five decades to make its presence felt in the state's corridors of power. Whether they can make or mar will be in the hands of the Tamil electorate.
