Stalin celebrates bittersweet birth anniversary of M Karunanidhi

DMK president MK Stalin had to be content with a bittersweet birth anniversary celebration of his father this year. Not only because he misses his father and political mentor Karunanidhi, but he has failed to honour the promise he had repeatedly made during the Parliamentary poll campaign -to unseat the Edappadi K Palaniswami regime and form a DMK government. 

Stalin has survived the litmus test to his leadership by sweeping the Parliamentary polls, and that too forging and leading a mega alliance, but he has failed to topple the incumbent AIADMK regime. The 13-seat Assembly bypoll victory has taken him past the finishing line, but also denied him the podium space. There would not be an opportune moment to recall the failed photo-finish than the June 3 deadline he had set to send the AIADMK home. Now, Stalin must wait for another two years or facilitate a miraculous defection in the AIADMK ranks to trigger snap polls or change of government in the state, thus keeping tongues wagging in the circle of critics and pundits equally alike. 

While pundits have started speculating Stalin’s capacity to disturb the stability of the incumbent government, critics have dubbed it as a real test to his statesmanship. None better than Stalin himself rightly summed up his political predicament by declaring on Monday that his party would be in power when they celebrate the centenary of Karunanidhi four years from now. “We will celebrate Kalaignar’s centenary in four years. We will be in power then,” he proclaimed at a rally organised by the party in the city to thank voters for giving them a resounding mandate. “If we had won, we would have had only a year and a half. But when we come to power later, we should be in power forever,” he added.

However, it has not deterred Stalin, understandably, from making the moves to advance his cut-off date. The DMK chief was understood to have given his nod to a select few in the party ranks, including a newly elected MLA from western Tamil Nadu, an influential minister known for his organisational skills from central Tamil Nadu and a MLA from an influential community in a southern district, to lure vulnerable MLAs from the rival camp. The newly elected MLA was learnt to have been the trump card which prompted Stalin to give his nod for the backdoor negotiations to pull the plugs on the Palaniswami government. If sources in the party are to be believed, the influential MLA with wherewithal may have already got a few MLAs in the ruling camp to blink, thanks to his lucrative offers and advances. The DMK negotiators have made so much headway that the Chief Minister was forced to get into a huddle with his MLAs to stave off a political crisis. 

Will Stalin’s negotiators succeed or keep him waiting till 2021 is a key question that begs an answer?