The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) treasurer and opposition leader M.K.Stalin has challenges ahead. Whether or not he gets formally elevated to the post of party president, as the buzz goes, at the crucial general council meeting slated for Wednesday, he is already at the helm. His 92-year-old father and party chief M.Karunanidhi is not keeping well and missing from action for months now.
Quite active these days in the role of opposition leader --he led a protest in Alanganallur near Madurai on Tuesday and slammed the Centre while pressing to ensure the holding of Jallikattu coinciding with the Pongal festival this month--
his shortcoming however seems to be an unaccommodative trait which has kept the opposition divided, forget the isolation of his Madurai-based elder brother M.K.Alagiri.
This failure has cost the party dearly in the elections to the legislative assembly held in May this year, thereby allowing the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK to come back to power for the second consecutive term.
The opposition continue to remain in splinters as a result of which it is unable to put up a stiff fight against the omissions of ruling dispensations in the state as well as the Centre and capitalise on the political situation in Tamil Nadu which is in a state of flux following the death of Jayalalithaa.
The attack on Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leader Vaiko by DMK supporters when he went to visit Karunanidhi when the nonagenarian was undergoing treatment at the Kauvery Hospital last month --Vaiko was forced to go back without seeing the DMK patriarch--was promptly decried by Stalin and other DMK leaders. The DMK managed to get away, instead of coming under fire, thanks to Vaiko who has lately turned acerbic against DMK leadership.
Vaiko, who claimed that the attack was orchestrated by Stalin, added that Stalin treated him as his enemy because he felt "insecure."
It might be recalled that Vaiko, whose support base has eroded down the years and credibility has got a beating, floated MDMK in 1994 after he was forced to quit DMK because he was seen as a threat to the growth of Stalin.
Any intolerant or authoritarian traits in Stalin will further take the party downhill. At a time when the AIADMK senior leaders are urging V.K.Sasikala to take over as chief minister, the situation demands a strong opposition in the state--though this is currently a nation-wide phenomenon-- so the government's decisions do not go unchallenged.
January 3, 2017.
