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BJP uses MGR, Kamaraj in Tamil Nadu poll campaign, irks rivals
The BJP use of ideological opponent Kamaraj is seen as an outreach towards a cross-section of voters.
With no mass leader of their own to connect with voters in Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is using icons from the past such as Congress stalwart and former chief minister K Kamaraj and ADMK (later renamed as AIADMK) founder MG Ramachandran (MGR) in the run-up to the assembly elections on April 6.
Despite being an ally of the BJP, the AIADMK had previously expressed disappointment over the saffron party’s efforts to usurp MGR in their campaign. The regional party further raised eyebrows over a giant cut out of Kamaraj at the venue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Coimbatore district last week.
Alongside Kamaraj was MGR, Modi, BJP chief J P Nadda, Tamil Nadu poll in-charge C T Ravi and state president L Murugan. At the rally, Modi had launched a scathing attack on the Congress and its ally, terming their meetings as “corruption hackathons”.
The Congress, however, said the BJP has ‘no right’ to use Kamaraj’s cutout during the poll campaign. “The Sangh Parivar had tried to enter Kamaraj’s house when he was in Delhi as AICC president and tried to kill him,” senior Congress leader EVKS Elangovan said.
“That is a fact of known history. Kamaraj belongs to the Congress and the people of Tamil Nadu. The BJP doesn’t belong to the people here and the AIADMK will be rejected because of their alliance with the BJP,” he added.
Elangovan was referring to a 1967 incident when the Indira Gandhi government had run into trouble with Hindu organizations over cow slaughter. Kamaraj’s house was among other public property that was set on fire and damaged.
“These are concocted stories. The RSS didn’t have any role in this,” BJP state general secretary and RSS member KT Raghavan said, adding: “The Congress can keep making absurd statements and get rejected by the people.”
BJP state vice-president K S Narendran, who had organized the rally in Coimbatore, said Kamaraj was above political parties. “We see him as a nationalist,” he said.
Narendran added: “When he was alive, he left the Congress and floated his own party. The Congress had deserted him and they cannot lay any claim on him. We respect him and follow his good governance practices.”
In an earlier interview with HT, Ravi had said that the biggest challenge for the saffron party in the state was the absence of a mass leader.
Analysts see the use of ideological opponent Kamaraj as an outreach towards a cross-section of voters.
“BJP’s political position was once taken by Kamaraj as he was opposed to the Dravidian ideology. When the Congress split (when), he was in the camp opposite former prime minister Indira Gandhi which is the present Congress,” political commentator Maalan Narayanan said.
