Wing16 Media - The Hottest Discussion Platform of India, Your Comments will be heard !

Nothing is permanent except change. After Independence, Congress ruled Tamil Nadu for 20 years.  The next 40 years belonged to Dravidian parties DMK and ADMK. These two parties came to power in turn not because of their good governance. But because the voters had no third choice. A few political aspirants tried their luck by starting political parties. They miserably failed. Persons who had some amount of success were G.K.Moopanar, Ramados and  Vaiko. But now it seems a change is in the offiing in the political scenario of Tamilnadu.

 In the 60 years of political history of democratic India none of the parties fought elections in their individual capacity without any allliance in Tamil Nadu. Their success is largely attributed to stalwarts like Anna, Kalaignar, Kamaraj, Periyar, Rajaji and MGR belonging to alliance parties.  In fact no party, however big it is,  had guts to fight elections without any alliance partners.

Most of the parties fielded candidates belonging to the majority community of the constituency to capture caste votes. ( Jayalalitha broke this hoodoo by fielding a hindu candidate in the muslim belt Vaniambadi against Nagoor Hanifa and winning the election).

Whenever new parties were floated the voters adopted wait and watch approach to give them power. Time and again the leaders of these new parties could not stand alone. They necessarily had to align with some big brothers for two reasons. One to get a few membership of Assembly. Two  to show the election commission that they have necessary vote percentage and Assembly membership to get permanent recognition. Fearing they will not get sufficient number of votes and fearing that they will not get even a single MLA if they contest the elections without any alliance they always fought by aligning with either DMK or ADMK. This did not find favour with the voters who always looked upon them as only follower parties not a leader party.

Because of this,  the voters did not recognise the new parties as the potential ruling party as they did not have the ability to lead but only capable of following. During this period many parties died a natural death.

At this juncture Vijaykanth started his new party DMDK. When this party was started there were comments that this will be another letterpad party and will not last for more than 100 days. When the elections were announced for Tamil Nadu in 2006 Vijaykanth drew everbody’s attention towards him by announcing that DMDK will contest in all the 234 constituencies and it will face the elections without any alliance. He did not stop with this he chose to contest from Vriddhachalam constituency which is a very stronghold of vanniars party Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) of Ramados. Many laughed at Vijaykanth for taking such bold steps and they called them rash and  the decision to contest in Vriddhachalam suicidal. At this time Vijaykanth made a statement that a leader should be capable of winning the elections irrespective of the constituency and he proved right by winning the Vriddhachalam seat by comfortable margin. Eventhough DMDK got only one MLA,  what is more important is the percentage of vote that party got and the impact of it in the elections.

Normally it is seen that victory to any party in Tamil Nadu is wholesome. Either DMK will win and ADMK will be routed out wholesomely or the other way. But Vijaykant effect changed this. No party could get absolute majority. For the first time Tamil Nadu was made to be ruled by DMK as a  minority party with the support by other parties from outside. The opposition party ADMK got more than 60 seats.

An analysis of votes obtained by various parties showed that DMDK had made deep inroads in vote bank in its debut by getting more than 8% votes and  was a deciding factor in almost 78 constituencies. These votes had severely affected the winning chances of DMK and ADMK.  Thus born a party  which fought an election in Tamil Nadu without any alliance and could get not only an MLA but a large chunk of votes creating shivers to both DMK and ADMK  by affecting their winning chances in  about 78 constituencies.

Vijaykanth’s sterling performance in debut made the voters sit and think and is slowly making them believe that he can deliver the goods. After this election DMDK has faced many smaller elections ( Corportion, Panchyat etc). In all these elections Vijaykanth maintained the individuality and did not align with anybody and contested the elections alone. These elections have confirmed that his political graph is moving upwards sharply and voters are keenly watching and supporting Vijaykanth’s DMDK.

Knowing no way to stop his growth,  attempts were made to silence him and to draw  him towards them by a few politicians by means of Incometax raids, by demolishing his big marriage hall and by foisting cases against him. But Vijaykanth seems to have been made of different stuff who turned every problem into opportunities and his familiarity grew by leaps and bounds.

The youth rally of DMDK at Chennai yesterday (18.10.08) goes to prove this point and is a clear sign of the party emerging in a big way. His policies are aimed towards the mass. At the same time his thinking is also towards technology and Industry.

While Vijaykanth has already started his innings in Assembly,  time is ripe for him to Captain his party to start a long innings in Delhi.

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it, about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.