A renewed attempt at breaching Dravida Nadu resistance

The expected has happened. And it’s not just the sealing of the alliance between BJP and AIADMK for the forthcoming Assembly elections, presently a year away. The chaos and internecine turf wars in the ruling DMK party, which was often the case whenever they assumed power over decades has also assumed alarming proportions.

What was once a regimented, cadre-based party with the will of the supremo heard with reverence and implemented with dedication has now turned on its head. A naked display of power politics, is evident with the core unit left with no choice but to watch the passing of the baton from the present Chief Minister Stalin to his son Udayanidhi, the Deputy CM. This has all the makings of a traditional potboiler Tamil cinema.

With his aggressive forays into commercial cinema business, Udayanidhi is now in the centre of action in the film trade, with many huge banners allegedly kowtowing to his political and financial power to enable their films get a decent release and exhibition across territories the world over. His father is already seen as being encircled by veteran partymen from Karunanidhi era along with the other family members, who are accused of back-seat driving and manoeuvring the state administration.

In any other Indian state, like how good triumphs over the ugly, an opposing party would wrest power from that which is running it now. Tamil Nadu is not such a simple case. Primarily because the opposition in the form of AIADMK was largely ineffective and laden with internal squabbles, while BJP was yet to find a decent route map to take the DMK on.

With the new alliance deal, things seem to be settled for now. The high-profile state BJP chief, Annamalai, who seemingly had the blessings of Delhi to keep a solitary journey ongoing for the saffron party till it can last, is now being moved out with a successor already announced. In what can be considered a very receptive and cooperative move, the BJP top brass is now very sensitive to the moods of the senior Dravidian partner and its leader E Palaniswamy, popular as EPS. It is now aiming to share power in Chennai in 2026, the city which has never given them the weightage it would have always craved for.

Using a combination of Tamil pride and the limited but still in working condition secular model, Stalin and his cohorts have already got into election mode in the southern capital. The usual complaints about step-motherly treatment from Centre and its selective support for the local welfare schemes are now rising in number. Naturally, it will reach a crescendo till the elections are over.

With Karnataka still elusive as the Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar duo is putting up a tough fight, the saffron party would want Tamil Nadu and Kerala in that order to take them more seriously and give them a credible chance to showcase their delivery model. They have a year to go for seeing this happen. Andhra Pradesh is just a consolation prize for them as of now and winning Telangana is also not a guarantee.

So ‘Operation Chennai Conquest’ is already heating up the political corridors of many zones in the country, with the Tamil capital city still not showing a clear push towards any direction as of today. This is of course the real reason why politics in this state will raise curiosity levels everywhere.