Chalking up a new agenda

A defiant Jayalalithaa is already busy, gearing up for April 2016 state elections:

by a special Correspondent

Back in office last week as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after her acquittal in the Disproportionate Assets (DA) case, Jayaram Jayalalithaa got into the election mode straightaway, announcing a series of development projects and populist schemes worth Indian Rupees 26.27 billion (USD 411 million).

Jayalalithaa sells dhal at a government fair price shop

The Tamil Nadu State Assembly is expected to go for fresh elections in April 2016, and political parties are already chalking up agendas and looking for alliances. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which Jayalalithaa heads, has the ambitious plan of increasing its tally in the House of 234 members, from 150 to 234!

This is clear political hyperbole and an unabashed propaganda gambit. But given the state of the opposition parties, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by veteran M.Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa’s ambitions are not entirely without foundation.

Something for everyone

The schemes that she has announced cover both rural and the urban areas, the haves and the have-nots. Improvement of roads in urban areas are to take INR 10000 million (USD 156.45 million). Those in rural areas are to cost Indian Rupees 8000 million (USD 126.15 million). About 1,274 reverse osmosis plants (water purification plants) are to be built at a cost of INR 770 million (USD 12 million) in many small towns to provide drinking water. Families headed by women would be aided by three schemes which are to cost INR 7500 million (USD 117 million).

Besides these big ticket schemes, there are smaller ones which bear her stamp explicitly. These are the ‘Amma Canteens’ where inexpensive shorts eats are provided. To the existing 297 canteens, 201 were added on her first day in office. ‘Amma’ (Madam or Mother) is the name by which Jayalalithaa is known among her followers.

More and more office goers, three wheeler drivers, shop keepers and students are patronizing these fast food joints in Chennai and other towns. She has also launched a scheme to sell parippu (Toor Dhal and Oorid Dhal) at cheap rates through government outlets so that the common man includes protein in his daily diet despite inflation.

Providing solar-powered ‘green houses’ with concrete roofing to poor families in small towns who are presently living in mud houses with thatched roofs, is another important initiative. Under this scheme, INR 210,000 (USD 3285) will be given to each eligible family. In the first phase, 20,000 families will be given such assistance to build their own houses, according to their own design.

Jayalalithaa is concentrating on the small towns because it is in such towns that 48.45 per cent of the people of Tamil Nadu live. With its focus shifting to the small towns, the AIADMK will now be challenging the DMK which is essentially an urban and semi-urban party.

Many major projects which had been deliberately stalled because of her absence from office, are now likely to be resumed. Among these are the monorail project in Chennai and the Global Investment Conference meant to attract national and international investment to Tamil Nadu. This mega conclave is to be held in 2015.

The political scenario is favourable to Jayalalithaa because the DMK is still led by the ageing Karunanidhi. His son and heir, M.K.Stalin, is no match for Jayalalithaa, though the DMK is today a united party with all units firmly under Stalin’s thumb. His brother M.K.Alagiri was neutralized and cousin Kanimozhi was sidelined after her incarceration for allegedly accepting a bribe of INR 2400 million (USD 37.5 million) in the widely-publicized 2011 telecom scam.

But the involvement of the Karunanidhi family in the telecom scam has damaged the image of the DMK as a whole. It cannot credibly promise clean government anymore.

For that matter, even Jayalalithaa cannot promise clean government given the way she accumulated personal wealth while she was in power earlier and the incarceration she had to undergo as a result of that. But she can claim to have given an effective government since she was voted in April 2011.

The other parties in Tamil Nadu have been reduced to being minor players. The votes of the Congress are divided between the breakaway Tamil National Congress led by G.K.Vasan and the mainstream Indian National Congress led by EVK.Sampath. The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) led by Dr.Ramadoss and his son, Dr.Anbumani, is still confined to a particular caste group, the Vanniyars. The Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) led by actor Vijayakanth is expected to be a pale shadow of its former self. In 2011, it won 29 seats but that was in alliance with Jayalalithaa. But with the alliance broken now, the DMDK might come a cropper in the 2016 polls.

The Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) led by Narendra Modi is well thought of in Tamil Nadu because of Modi’s personal stature. But the BJP has no organization in the state, and its leader, Dr.Tamilisai Soundararajan, is a newcomer to politics though her father, Kumari Ananthan, was a well known Congress leader. Moreover, the BJP’s Hindutva ideology ill fits Tamil Nadu, where the dominant political ideology has either been secular Indian nationalism or Dravidian equalitarianism.

BJP defensive

One of the major factors working in Jayalalithaa’s favour is that the BJP may not want to annoy her given the need for AIADMK’s support in the Indian parliament’s Upper House, known as the Rajya Sabha. While the BJP has a great majority in the Lower House, popularly called the Lok Sabha, it is weak in the Rajya Sabha. This makes the passage of key bills like the Land Acquisition Bill problematic for the BJP. Therefore the BJP may not make a bid for power in Tamil Nadu in April 2016.

Towards economy and welfare

The other factor which may work to Jayalalithaa’s advantage is that none of the original petitioners in the Disproportionate Assets case seems to be eager to go on appeal to the Supreme Court. The Karnataka Government, which conducted the case in the Karnataka High Court on the orders of the Supreme Court, feels that it is not a party to the case or an aggrieved party, and therefore, it need not go on appeal.

The original petitioner, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, is now a leader of the BJP, and the BJP wants to keep Jayalalithaa in good humour. The DMK had joined the case later, but it is not clear if it will want to fight the case on its own, given the expenses involved. Also, after the telecom scam, its credibility in the anti-corruption issue is open to question.

Political observers say that this time round, Jayalalithaa will lay stress on achieving economic and welfare goals rather than on disputes with other South Indian states and Sri Lanka.

The dispute over the sharing of the waters of the Cauvery River with Karnataka is still a hardly annual. But Jayalalithaa is now hamstrung by the fact that a hard line against Karnataka may make the Congress Government in that state go on appeal to the Supreme Court in the Disproportionate Assets case against her. The case had been conducted by the Karnataka Government on the orders of the Supreme Court. At the moment, the Karnataka Government is not interested in going on appeal, saying that it is not one of the aggrieved parties.

But if Jayalalithaa launches an agitation against Karnataka on the Cauvery issue, the Karnataka Government could change its stand on the case.

Sri Lankan dimension

In the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Jayalalithaa vigorously took up the Sri Lankan Tamil issue and the Indo-Sri Lankan dispute over fishing in the Palk Bay. Throughout 2013, there were agitations against Sri Lanka on the human rights and war crimes questions, which were partly state sponsored and partly spontaneous.

The State Assembly passed resolutions calling for Indian economic sanctions against Sri Lanka and asking for a referendum on the formation of Tamil Eelam among Sri Lankan Tamils living overseas. Sinhalese pilgrims, including Buddhist monks, were attacked by goons. India was asked to enhance the anti-Sri Lanka resolution at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and vote for it.

While Jayalalithaa could still continue on her aggressive path, vis-a-vis Sri Lanka, just to keep others from exploiting the Sri Lankan Tamil issue against her, the local, international and Sri Lankan scenarios are not very favourable for whipping up the issue beyond a point.

The belligerent Mahinda Rajapaksa is no longer the President of Sri Lanka. In his place has come the mild and accommodative Maithripala Sirisena. Unlike his predecessor, Sirisena has begun the process of demilitarization of the Northern Province and giving back to Tamil civilians, lands which had been seized by the military during the war. And the main Tamil outfit, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), is now an ally of Sirisena.

On the fishing issue, the Sirisena government is expected to be less belligerent. The Tamil Nadu government has also come to believe that a very hard line on the fishing issue will only result in Tamil Nadu fishermen losing their boats. The Sri Lankan Government’s policy of detaining boats while releasing fishermen, has worked as the fishermen themselves are now putting pressure on the Tamil Nadu Government to settle the issue through talks and not just grandstand.

The UNHRC has gone soft on Sri Lanka after the regime change in Colombo. The Sri Lankan issue is not going to be brought up during the September session of the UNHRC. The Tamil Diaspora, which is influenced by Western governments, has fallen line. The British Tamil Forum (BTF) even declared in a press release that the atmosphere in Sri Lanka is now ‘breathtakingly fresh’! With no encouragement from the West and the Tamil Diaspora, the pro-Eelam or pro-Tamil lobby in Tamil Nadu is bound to lie rather low, in marked contrast to the previous election year, namely, 2013-2014.