With the ruling AIADMK bagging the Sattankulam seat in the February 26 by-election with a convincing margin, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is now on the offensive.
Her aim -- to capture 30-plus seats in the next Lok Sabha polls slated for April next year, and put her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagan (AIADMK) in a position to influence the formation of the next government at the Centre.
Tamil Nadu sends 39 members to the Lok Sabha.
Winning the Sattankulam seat had been no mean achievement considering that the AIADMK was contesting the traditionally pro-Congress seat for the first time since the party's inception 30 years back.
The AIADMK was engaged in a straight contest with the Congress. In that context, its 17,000-plus margin is more than respectable.
Congress candidate A Mahendran intends to challenge the election in the courts, but allegations of unfair practices may not have many takers.
Addressing government-sponsored functions in various districts, Jayalalithaa has been taunting the opposition, re-asserting time and again that she, and she alone, is the only political force in the state.
She had launched the offensive in her thanksgiving speech to the Sattankulam voters, soon after the result of the by-election was known.
Thanking the voters, Jayalalithaa said the by-election result had demolished the 'myth' that the Congress is the 'deciding factor' in Tamil Nadu politics.
In a strong message to both the Congress and the BJP, she made it clear that the AIADMK is quite capable of winning elections on its own.
For the BJP, which is believed to be keen on a tie-up with the AIADMK, what this means is that any alliance would be on the latter's terms.
The BJP's alliance with the other state heavyweight, the DMK, is perceived as being on shaky grounds though the latter continues to be part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
Interestingly, in the weeks following the Sattankulam by-election, Jayalalithaa had been training her guns exclusively on the DMK.
It served two purposes.
One, to keep her options open, vis-à-vis the Congress and the Left parties.
Another, was to put some life into the AIADMK-DMK rivalry, which was in danger of dissolving after the latter's near-rout in the 2001 assembly polls.
Some say that the controversial midnight arrest of DMK president M Karunanidhi was partially aimed at galvanizing the demoralised DMK cadres.
The reason is that both Dravidian heavyweights are afraid that in case one of them is weakened, national parties like the Congress or the BJP would take its place in state politics.
To prevent this, over the years, the party in power has ensured that the rival's morale does not hit rock bottom.
In 1989, when the DMK returned to power, Congress' fortunes were on the upswing and there was talk of it replacing the AIADMK as the main opposition.
Soon after, there was the infamous incident involving an alleged attack on AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa in the state assembly forcing her to fight back, rather than withdraw into a shell.
Today, despite its best effort and long presence in the state, the Congress is still on shaky ground and continues to be a bit player in Tamil Nadu politics.
And after the enactment of the anti-conversion law in Tamil Nadu and the Sattankulam by-election, events have shown that Jayalalithaa may have hijacked the BJP's peripheral voters too.
