Few hurdles for Jayalalithaa

As filing of nominations for the R.K. Nagar Assembly constituency begins on Wednesday, the indication is that no political party, other than the Left, is ready to pick up the gauntlet against Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Even the two Left parties are not able to arrive at a consensus on who among them should enter the fray. The CPI State committee is interested in fielding its candidate, but whether the CPI(M) will step aside in its favour will be known only on Wednesday.

Social activist ‘Traffic’ Ramasamy’s attempt to present himself as a common candidate of the Opposition also has not materialised so far as the leaders of the parties whom he had sought support are yet to spell out their stand.

‘Preoccupied with organisational work’

Almost all the political parties have announced their decision to boycott the poll and on Tuesday Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) leader G.K. Vasan said his party was totally preoccupied with organisational work to contest in the by-election.

“It is a duty of a political party to take part in elections and by-election should provide an opportunity to judge the performance of the ruling party. Unfortunately, in Tamil Nadu the ruling party alone has won by-elections in the last decade,” he said.

A.R. Venkatachalapathy of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) agreed that the situation had come to such a pass that major political parties were abstaining from by-polls, but made a case for taking into consideration various factors that had led to the trend.

“Of course, the ruling party resorts to all means to win the poll. But, how do you expect a political party to contest against the ruling party when the Leader of the Opposition [DMDK leader Vijayakant] in the State Assembly is not attending the session,” he said.

Mr. Venkatachalapathy rejected as an “excuse” the argument that the Opposition members were not allowed to express their opinion freely in the Assembly.

“Let him first attend the House. Has Ms. Jayalalithaa not made her presence felt just by attending the Assembly one day,” he said, pointing out that in the past, DMK leader M. Karunanidhi had never allowed Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran to win a by-election without a real fight on the ground.

‘Unhealthy trend’

Another professor of MIDS, C. Lakshmanan, also said major political parties staying away from by-polls was not a healthy trend.

“ Mr. Karunanidhi giving audience to ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy exposes the party’s weakness. When an ordinary person has the courage to take on the mighty, what can prevent a major political party to do the same,” he asked.

Mr. Lakshmanan said the argument of the DMK that the ruling party would misuse its power and administration to win the poll did not hold water as the DMK had indulged in similar violations in by-polls when it was in power.

“Winning and losing is part of electoral democracy. Staying away from an election is not acceptable,” he said.

One of the two Left parties alone has so far decided to field its candidate in the R.K. Nagar by-poll