Vaiko targets CM's post

MDMK chief Vaiko is looking ahead and not behind. His sights are set towards Fort St. George, the seat of the Tamil Nadu government. Vaiko's politics are different from other Tamil Nadu leaders and he is making no secret about his ambition to capture power at some point in the near future.

MDMK chief Vaiko is looking ahead and not behind. His sights are set towards Fort St. George, the seat of the Tamil Nadu government. Vaiko's politics are different from other Tamil Nadu leaders and he is making no secret about his ambition to capture power at some point. For this purpose, he is even willing to give up dabbling in national politics.

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How is he going to achieve this?

It is quite simple. By positioning himself as the chief ministerial candidate and trying to get the DMK cadres to accept him in the post-Karunanidhi scenario, Vaiko has already begun to broaden his base by touring the length and breadth of the state appealing to younger voters who are growing in number.

Vaiko, who is a rabble-rouser from the DMK stables, has seen ups and downs in his political career. He was close to DMK president M Karunanidhi at one time and fell from grace later.

"We have taken a decision not to join any government at the centre. We will confine ourselves to state politics and work for the future of Tamil Nadu," he told this writer.

Interestingly, Vaiko is not even contesting elections this time to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

"I have completed 25 years in parliament and I want to serve the people of my state now," he said.

His aim today is to build a disciplined cadre base that would work for the development of the state. "I am looking at youth between 18 to 35 and getting them organised," he said.

The MDMK leader is busy making use of his partnership with the DMK front.

This has led to speculation that he is trying to make key space for himself in

Dravidian politics. After all, DK, DMK, AIADMK and MDMK are all products of the same ideology and movement.

Sensing this, Karunanidhi, too, is worried about the re-emergence of Vaiko because he would like his son MK Stalin to take over the party after him. He would not let Vaiko sit next to him lest it be seen that he is his successor.

However, the DMK chief denies it: "It is totally false. The alliance is working and Vaiko has been coming to all our meetings."

The MDMK has been changing sides since it was born -- protesting against Karunanidhi when Vaiko was expelled by the party.

Vaiko shot into fame when he slipped into Jaffna, the stronghold of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka's northeast, to spend a month in the jungles with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader V Prabhakaran in 1989.

It created a furore and it disturbed DMK chief Karunanidhi, who reacted sharply.

On May 6, 1994, the MDMK was born after Vaiko accused the DMK chief of trying to bring Stalin as his successor. It was years later, when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Tamil Nadu in 1998 to attend the renaissance rally of MDMK, that Karunanidhi came face to face for the first time with Vaiko at the airport. Since then, the two have patched up.

In Tamil Nadu politics, the MDMK was partner with the AIADMK in 1998 and moved to the DMK front in 1999.

While Vaiko did not become a minister in the Vajpayee government, his MPs joined the cabinet both times. Vaiko had fully supported Vajpayee throughout and quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) just before the 2004 elections -- just as the PMK and DMK did.

The point is that these smaller parties have their own vote share and therefore they are able to sweep whichever front they join.

Said former BJP minister S Thirunavukkarasu: "No individual leader is popular and it is the alliance which is important in the state in today's politics. The arithmetic is the key."

Vaiko may get the sympathy votes but it is not going to make a big difference.

Vaiko's rise in politics is quite interesting.

His real name is V Gopalaswamy and one fine day some years ago (just about the same time when Jayalalitha decided to add another A to her name) he decided to shorten his name. The speculation was that he did it on astrological advice.

However, his private secretary denies this and asserts that Vaiko is not a believer of astrology and in fact they hold their meetings during 'rahu kalam', inauspicious time.

Vaiko, riding a tiger, has landed himself in trouble by annoying 'Amma', Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha.

A consistent supporter of the LTTE, the man who represented Sivakasi in the last Lok Sabha has never shied away from projecting himself as a protector of Tamil Eelam. He was a vocal supporter of this cause, which he championed in his public meetings.

This landed him in prison for 18 months when Jayalalitha got him under the Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA).

When Vaiko came out from prison two months ago he received a tumultuous welcome. "I lost a chance to speak in parliament when POTA was amended recently as the court did not release me. I had prepared an excellent speech and the whole country would have listened to my argument," regretted Vaiko.

Why is Jayalalitha against Vaiko?

According to the MDMK chief, it is because of NDA politics.

"She wanted to come closer to BJP again and she felt that my presence in the NDA was not good for her," said Vaiko who is still the POTA case against him.

With several surveys predicting a sweep for the DMK front in Tamil Nadu, Vaiko is not very worried. He is touching base with many constituencies and looking at the next assembly elections.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based political commentator.)