Frozen Leaves In Search Of A New Spring

There is an interesting song in Iruvar (The Duo), Mani Ratnam’s semi-biopic on the MGR-Karunanidhi rivalry. Midway through the song “Do not shut your eyes” are these lines: “Every bearded one is not Tagore and not everyone with a moustache (Subramania) Bharati. Don’t be fooled by appearances.” Last week, another line got added to that song in the minds of many Tamilians: “Not everyone who wears a hat is MGR.”

T.T.V. Dinakaran realised that on the very first day he went to file his papers for the RK Nagar assembly bypoll, wear­ing a white hat—the symbol of his now officially split faction renamed as AIADMK (Amma). If Dinakaran’s managers exp­ected the locals to be thrilled by looking at a new avatar of MGR, they were disappointed. Instead many asked who was the guy wearing a white “thoppi” (hat). Not just the AIADMK’s two factions, but even their symbols are undergoing a severe identity crisis.

After the Election Commission froze the ‘two leaves’ symbol, the Sasikala faction and the O. Panneerselvam faction had to pick a new name and a new symbol to contest the April 12 bypoll to fill the vacancy caused by Jayalalitha’s death. It was hardly the tribute Amma would have expected from her fawning followers—sending both the party name and symbol into deep freeze.

Dinakaran chose the hat, planning to doff the same during the heated campaign—emulating MGR, synonymous with his white fur cap and dark glas­ses. (In fact, MGR was buried wearing both in December 1987). Dinakaran was ­following his aunt Sasikala’s footsteps, who had tried to model herself after Jayalalitha on becoming general ­secretary of the AIADMK in December. It did not work for ‘Chinnamma’; will it work for her nephew?

As Dinakaran attempted to play identity politics, his rival Panneerselvam, now heading the “AIADMK (PT Amma)” chose optical illusion. He picked the ‘lamp post’ symbol—two street lamps on either side of a pole, which, at first sight, resembled the AIADMK’s ‘two leaves’ symbol. Thus ‘lamp post’ versus ‘hat’ became the most-watched rivalry, pushing even the eventual beneficiary—the DMK—to the background.

“Whenever the AIADMK is split, the DMK has won,” says DMK MLA P.K. ­Sekar Babu. “We will see a repeat of 1989 when their two factions had fought each other instead of taking on the DMK. For the rival factions, this bypoll is not about defeating the DMK, but polling more votes than the other faction to gain legitimacy as the real AIADMK.”

True, besting each other has become a matter of political survival for the two groups. Though the Panneerselvam ­(aka OPS) faction is higher on the popular­ity index, it needs the electoral clout to neutralise the numerical advantage in MLAs and MPs the Sasikala group currently enjoys. The first part of this calculation was to deny Dinakaran the popular ‘two leaves’ symbol. His rivals achieved this by convincing the Election Commission about the split in the party. The next step is to consolidate this adv­antage by ensuring that the ‘lamp post’ gets more votes than the ‘hat’.

“If our candidate E. Madhusudhanan gets more votes than Dinakaran, our group will get imprinted as the real AIADMK in the minds of the public,” says K. Semmalai, a senior MLA of the Panneerselvam faction. “Pushing Din­akaran to the third place would also create doubts among the AIADMK MLAs about the efficacy of the Sasikala-­Dinakaran leadership.”

But those who know ­Dinakaran to be smart say he would not have taken such a risk unl­ess he was sure of winning the seat or at least giving the DMK a close fight. “Why would he throw his hat into the ring unless he wanted to make a solid political statement?” asks a senior minister who did not wish to be named. “He knows that the ruling party has not lost a bypoll in the state in the past two decades and would not like to besmirch that record. He would do everything to win and win convincingly.”

The DMK is worried that the Thirumangalam formula, which it had adopted in 2009 to win a bypoll by showering people with money and gifts, would be employed this time by Dinakaran in R.K. Nagar with the help of officials. The DMK has attempted to counter this by getting key officials transferred by the Election Commission, hoping it would create a more level playing field. If the party does not win against the two AIA­DMK factions, bereft of both Jayalalitha and ‘two leaves’, it would reflect poorly on DMK chief M.K. Stalin’s leadership and his ability to win elections.

“Dinakaran has cleverly avoided using Sasikala’s pictures, knowing it would pull him down,” observes ­political commentator P. Thirumavelan. “This shows he has seen the writing on the wall and has adapted quickly, even if it means quietly disowning his own aunt. Dinakaran’s performance in this bypoll would determine whether he emerges as the next political rival of Stalin or not. He is definitely playing for the long term.”

By G.C. Shekhar in Chennai