BJP gets onto Rajini bandwagon

The BJP, going all out to gain a toehold in Tamil Nadu in the vacuum created by the passing of four-time Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the retirement of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, is wooing mega star Rajinikanth to its side, ahead of the next election. It could be Lok Sabha in 2019 or Assembly elections in the state earlier than that, if it manages to destabilise the Edapaddi Palanisamy Government. 

Columnist and RSS sympathiser S Gurumurthy has quite candidly said the BJP strategy is to ‘cleanse’ the AIADMK of corrupt elements and face the next election in alliance with it. Even if Rajini does not enter politics, he can be persuaded to back this alliance. 

It is not an improbable scenario. Rajini has always been close to the BJP, from the days of LK Advani. He is equally close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party strategist Amit Shah, is expected to meet Rajini soon in this regard (entering politics). 

Viewed in this backdrop, Rajini’s interaction with his fans in the last few days, coming after a gap of several years, assumes significance. He himself has said in his own delightfully vague way, that God willing, he will enter politics and won’t allow anyone to exploit his name to make money by corrupt means. As an afterthought, he has asked his fans to prepare for the big battle ahead. He won’t say when. Probably, he himself does not know.

Nothing new in what he has been saying on his on and off comments on politics. Nor is there anything new in the pro-BJP leaders wooing Rajini. Thuglaq editor Cho S Ramaswamy tried to bring Rajini into politics, since his famous statement of 1996 that if Jayalalithaa was voted to power, not even  God could save Tamil Nadu. Jaya lost in 1996. But Cho’s attempts were in vain. 

Now, it appears that Gurumurthy is starting from where Cho has left off. Only difference is that, Jaya is no longer around and Karunanidhi is into virtual retirement. It is a God-given opportunity for Rajini. However, I doubt if Rajini will take the plunge, now or later. God  forbid, even if he does, it will not make any major difference. 

Mere film popularity will not ensure success in politics. The total rout of the Jaya regime in 1996 is attributed to the last-minute support by Rajini to the DMK-TMC alliance. It was Subramanian Swamy who carried on a sustained campaign for five years against the regime of Jaya. It was he who got the Governor’s sanction to launch several corruption cases against her. One of these was the disproportionate assets case, which proved to be Jaya’s undoing, 18 long years later. 

As Swamy rightly points out, Rajini did not raise his voice against the five years of misrule by Jaya and walked away with all the credit with one pronouncement in 1996. In the subsequent elections, his support or opposition to any party, did not make any difference. Granted, he has a huge fan following, extending even to Japan. However, a Japanese is not going to vote in Tamil Nadu. 

Another argument in favour of Rajini-entry is, if MGR could succeed, why not Rajini? MGR was associated with the DMK for decades during his film career. He was elected on the DMK ticket first as MLC and later as MLA. Even so, his priority was films. Only when Karunanidhi, wary of his growing popularity, expelled him from the DMK, did MGR launch the AIADMK in 1973. It took him another four years to come to power. 

He used cinema to build an image as a Good Samaritan. He lived up to that image in real life. His acts of charity were legendary. And he truly loved the poor, an empathy not even his successor Jayalalithaa had. Despite being mentored by MGR, Jaya had to struggle for eight years to come to power.  While MGR succeeded, Sivaji Ganesan, another actor who ventured into politics, did not. 

Rajini, who started as a bus conductor, made his fortune in Tamil Nadu. What was Rajani’s contribution to Tamil Nadu? Nothing. He did not give even a penny for relief efforts when the tsunami struck the State in 2004 or when Chennai was battered by the heaviest deluge of the century. Or when the unprecedented drought aggravated by Karnataka’s refusal to release Cauvery water to the State, pushing distressed farmers to suicide. He did not join the film industry’s protest. Instead, he observed a separate fast and at the end of it, announced that he would contribute Rs 1 crore if the Centre took up the linking of inter-State rivers. He knew it would never happen. 

In contrast, when forest brigand Veerappan abducted Kannada superstar Raj Kumar, Rajini asked Nakkeeran editor RR Gopal to somehow secure his freedom. Veerappan, as well as his new-found friends from Tamil separatist groups, asked why Rajini did not condemn the 1991 anti-Tamil riots engineered by Bangarappa, to protest the tribunal’s announcement of an interim award on Cauvery. Veerappan and his associates then alleged that Rajini had rushed to protect his investments in Karnataka. 

Finally, his fellow star Vijayakanth: He did not prevaricate. He took the plunge in 2005. Where he is now? 

These and other issues will come to 

the fore if and when Rajini enters active politics, either as leader of his own outfit or a supporter of the BJP. As he himself said once, he is facing an identity crisis. Kannadigas see him as Sivaji Rao, a Maharashtrian. Marathis see him as a Madrassi. And in Tamil Nadu, he is dubbed a Kannadiga. 

MGR was projected as a Malayalee and Jaya as a Mandya Iyengar. A double whammy. They overcame these challenges to emerge as leaders in their own right. 

Rajini, elevated to the status of a demigod, does not come through as a fighter. He himself has said that all his politically-loaded dialogues were meant to boost his films. Left to himself, he would happily continue in films.

It is 20 years too late for him to take a call on whether or not to enter politics. He is 66. Age did not stand in the way of MGR and Karunanidhi and they were in the thick of politics for years. Entering politics in the mid-60s and bringing about a transformation may work in reel life and not in real life. 

The BJP will be the last to put all its eggs in Rajini’s basket. Hence, the second prong of its strategy, namely to bring the two factions of the AIADMK together and force them to go together in the next elections. Income-tax raids, CBI probes, the arrest of TTV Dinakaran in the cashfor-vote, are part of the grand strategy to pressurise the Edappadi government, even otherwise non-functional, to unite with O Panneerselvam faction. 

The BJP is in no hurry. What we see is groundwork being done ahead of the next election. It is too early to say whether its grand design will work or whether Rajini can be coaxed into taking the plunge. Interesting times ahead.