The Hindu : DMK bid to ride two horses

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

DMK bid to ride two horses

By R.K. Radhakrishnan

CHENNAI Dec. 16. Despite Congress and Left pressure to quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, the DMK has decided to ride two horses for now — it will neither walk out of the alliance nor shut out the other combine.

The DMK's strategy, after it declared that the alliance with the BJP existed only at the Centre, is similar to what the BJP adopted in Tamil Nadu— of not ruling anything out. This was made clear by the DMK president, M. Karunanidhi, yesterday, when he repeated one of his favourite lines: ``In politics anything can happen.''

Though an election is far away, it is the AIADMK Government's law banning forced conversions which triggered a response from almost the entire Opposition and served to bring the parties together to think of a common platform. Following the BJP's unabashed admiration of the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa's anti-conversion law, it became all the more important for an embarrassed DMK to prove its secular credentials.

Though the DMK tried to join the protest by the Left-Congress `secular combine,' the strident opposition by the CPI (M) and, to a lesser extent, by the CPI and later by the Congress, insisted that the DMK first get out of the NDA before building bridges with the combine. In the view of the Left parties, if the DMK was let in without preconditions, it would reduce the anti-conversion law protest to merely opposing the AIADMK. In its outlook, strong opposition to the law is important, but that is not an end in itself. Hence, the DMK has to first prove its commitment to secularism by walking out of the NDA.

This stand has irked the DMK and it has not lost a chance since then to flaunt its secular moorings. Mr. Karunanidhi's decision to attend two Iftar parties in the space of three days and his willingness to share the stage with the Left-Congress combine - despite the war of words between the CPI (M) and the DMK - were yet another instance in which he sought to highlight the point that his party was willing to walk the talk on protecting minorities.

Also, Mr. Karunanidhi has sought to allay the fears of the combine, repeatedly saying he stood for secularism and that his party did not ally with the BJP at the State level. ``In the place where Mr. Karunanidhi stands, communalism will not enter,'' he stated. But such rhetoric and emotional appeals did not cut ice with the Left.

On its part, the BJP does not feel the need for unnecessarily alienating the AIADMK as demanded by the DMK.

This is the main reason for the parties drifting apart. In the view of a senior DMK leader, the relationship is now confined to each accusing the other on one issue or the other.

Still neither the DMK nor the BJP is willing to snap ties.

The DMK seems comfortable with the ambiguity in the relationship.

The absence of its link man in New Delhi, Murasoli Maran, Union Minister, who is now undergoing treatment in a Houston (U.S.) Hospital, has meant a communication gap between the BJP's top leadership and the DMK.

This has perhaps dented the comfortable equations the DMK enjoyed with the top BJP leadership.

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