The adage “all’s well that ends well” does not apply to the bonhomie displayed in the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi at Raj Bhavan in Chennai on Monday. The 30-minute session undid substantially the speculation that the Congress-DMK alliance had fractured since the DMK chief snubbed the PM by skipping the protocol of receiving him at the airport and, instead, attending the release of a book of poems penned by close friend Vairamuthu, a popular cinema lyricist, late Sunday evening. Not just that; Karunanidhi regaled the audience there, narrating a story of how a Tamil king stood fanning a scholar who had fallen asleep waiting for him at the palace. He received applause at declaring that since Tamil rulers always respected scholars, he chose to keep his date with poet Vairamuthu rather than go meet the PM. The king’s tale was forgotten the next morning as Mr Karunanidhi’s government put out a statement soon after the Raj Bhavan rendezvous saying the CM could not meet the PM the previous night because his eyes began watering after the long session on the bright Vairamuthu dais. They said he needed a visit to his ophthalmologist before driving to Raj Bhavan. A few eyedrops thus helped repair the strained alliance, one might assume, but that would not be the entire truth.
The CM has been unhappy with the Congress for some time. The 2G spectrum raids on former telecom minister A. Raja, his blue-eyed boy, led Mr Karunanidhi to suspect that the Congress leadership was trying to twist his arm before the Assembly election seat-sharing talks. He was upset when the PM cancelled his inaugural visit to Adyar Eco Park because the mandatory clearances had not come from the Union environment ministry. DMK leaders felt the environmental approvals were delayed only to deny the party a great photo-op in the park and that the PM was reluctant to share the dais with Mr Karunanidhi because of the spectrum scam. And the frequent outbursts of E.V.K.S. Elangovan, a former Union minister and ex-president of the Tamil Nadu Congress, targeting the DMK and its government, made them suspect that the AICC’s failure to rein him in was deliberate. Even on Sunday E.V.K.S. celebrated the excitement created by Mr Karunanidhi not meeting the PM by declaring at a public meeting that the Congress “will wake up” in a fortnight to announce snapping of ties with the DMK.
Even if these E.V.K.S. tirades were to be dismissed, what about Mr Rahul Gandhi ignoring Mr Karunanidhi on his trips to Tamil Nadu “to invigorate the Youth Congress”? DMK seniors are convinced that Mr Gandhi strongly desires aborting the alliance. He has been receiving petitions and hearing the views of his Tamil comrades advocating just that because Mr Karunanidhi would not share power in the state even though he depended on Congress support to prop up his minority government. Besides, the electorate in Tamil Nadu has never voted for an incumbent CM, the lone exception being the late AIADMK founder MGR, who scored a hat-trick of wins in 1977, 1980 and 1984.
Any honest Congressman in Tamil Nadu would wish that his party was in better shape in the state, with a stronger cadre base and less squabbling, to be able to take advantage of the situation. While the other parties are holding melas to recruiting members and welcoming leaders from rival parties, the only excitement in the Tamil Nadu Congress is that of one faction of the party weaning away members from another faction.