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'It is wrong to assume that the DMK-TMC combine can do a repeat of 1996'

Shobha Warrier in Madras

"The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Tamil Maanila Congress do not understand the power of the All India Anna DMK-led front," says K Varadarajan, member of the Tamil Nadu state secretariat of the Communist Party of India- Marxist.

Behind the veiled threat lurks the party's disappointment at the "raw deal" meted out to it by the DMK-TMC combine, which allocated just one seat apiece to the CPI-M and the CPI in the state.

In this context, Varadarajan's tough talk appears to be more in the nature of a hint to DMK chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi and his TMC counterpart G Karuppaiah Moopanar, who are slated to release the list of the combine's candidates on Sunday morning.

Varadarajan and the CPI-M obviously hope that the DMK-TMC combine will rethink, and allocate the Marxist party at least a seat or two more.

Karunanidhi, for his part, very firmly indicated in course of an interview to the SunTV channel (which his family owns) on Friday evening that there was no question of a rethink on the matter.

If Karunanidhi stands firm on his decision, the CPI-M will then have no option other than to go with its stated intention of contesting, on its own, six seats in the state. Interestingly, once the Leftist party announced that it was prepared to go it alone, both the Janata Dal and the Puthiya Thamizhagam party led by former AIADMK man Dr K A Krishnaswamy contacted the CPI-M in order to explore the possibility of launching a third front.

"We will take a decision about opening up a third front on the 30^th," said Varadarajan, adding that some other small political outfits had also expressed an interest. "For now, we are giving the DMK-TMC combine more than enough time to reconsider our very reasonable demand."

The CPI-M reasoning is that dating way back from 1952 on, the party has been contesting -- with, of course, the backing of one or other of the regional parties -- seats such as Coimbatore, Madurai, Nagapattinam, Tiruchi and, more lately, Madras North.

The sole seat that was offered to the CPI-M by Karunanidhi and Moopanar was Coimbatore, the industrial city where, by virtue of its clout with the trade unions, the leftist party is strongly entrenched.

Of late, thanks to the outbreak of communal clashes in the region, the Bharatiya Janata Party has gained considerable ground in the Coimbatore area, however. The upshot is that Coimbatore is no longer a sinecure for the Leftist outfit, but will entail a hard fight, even with the backing of the ruling combine, to retain. "It is not justifiable at all to give us just that one seat," a party source said.

Varadarajan for his part traces the niggardly offer of one seat to arrogance on the part of the ruling combine. "They think they can, without the support of the CPI-M and other parties, sweep the election like they did last time. But that is a wrong calculation. Last time, there was a wave against Jayalalitha's corrupt government. There is no such wave now. So it is wrong to assume that the DMK-TMC combine can do a repeat of 1996."

Interestingly, the CPI-M does not consider Jayalalitha and her AIADMK as its main foe in the election -- irrespective of whether they go it alone, or as part of either the ruling combine or even the proposed third front. "Our fight will be against the BJP and the Congress. But we consider the BJP the biggest evil, we plan to caution the electorate about them. After we decided to go it alone, we got a lot of congratulatory calls from people who said we should not align with either the DMK or the AIADMK," Varadarajan added.

Political analysts await the release of the DMK-TMC list as eagerly as the two Leftist parties -- and the consensus among them is that if the ruling combine sticks to its decision and, in consequence, the CPI-M either goes solo or forms a third front, the real beneficiary will be none other than the AIADMK-BJP alliance led by Jayalalitha Jayaram.

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