NEWS
VIEWS
INTERVIEWS
CAMPAIGN TRAIL
ISSUES '98
MANIFESTOS
OVERHEARD
POLLING BOOTH
INDIA SPEAKS!
YEH HAI INDIA
CHAT

Jayalalitha plays a dangerous game

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Reviled, accused of a variety of crimes, even sent to jail, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha still dominates the election scene in Tamil Nadu. What's more, she seems to be willingly doing just what her adversaries hoped she would do, making even those Opposition candidates who seem to have a fair chance of winning wonder what she's trying to do.

"'She is proving her critics right and friends wrong," says a Marumalarchi DMK official. "Her political opponents have kept her alive as a political issue. By going on the offensive, Jayalalitha is making herself the central issue in the election all over again." A strategy that could backfire.

Both her political rivals, the DMK and the Tamil Maanila Congress have kept the pressure on her often referring to the "corruption and lawlessness of the AIADMK regime". The bogey of corruption has been used in this election too, to minimise any possible threat from the AIADMK.

All the issues of the 1996 election are still alive. TMC chief G K Moopanar has cautioned audiences against Jayalalitha and friends at various election meetings. "Do not encourage corrupt forces," he said at Kanereepwan.

Chief Minister and DMK supremo M Karunanidhi has not spared the AIADMK, while being a little softer on Jayalalitha's newest ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Last Wednesday he quickly clarified that there was no truth in Jayalalitha's claim that the Madras high court has stayed a judge's order in the contentious SPIC-TIDCO disinvestment case. He also took pains to provide the details.

Because she has tied up with the BJP, Jayalalitha is using their stability plank. But that would not be for long, says an AIADMK leader.

"Some of us even thought the focus would shift completely to the BJP and national politics. We also hoped the DMK-TMC combine would fail in keeping the 'Jaya issue' alive during an election, at a time when there is no other local issue on hand." According to him, the ruling team is actually keeping at it, undermining its relations -- or possible relations -- with the BJP.

What has unnerved her allies, as also some AIADMK leaders, is that the lady is going on the offensive in the run-up to the election. Launching her campaign on Tuesday, she travels the state in an open vehicle, like she used to. Her whole campaign revolves around the question: "What wrong did I do for me to be put in jail?"

There is some sympathy for her, the current reputation of the authorities being what it is, but the masses, adds an ideologue from another AIADMK ally, the Pattali Makkal Katchi, feel a little uncomfortable being asked what wrong she has done.

In that sense, Jayalalitha appears to be shooting herself in the foot. The PMK leader points out that then chief minister M G Ramachandran remained in power by keeping the electoral focus on arch-rival Karunanidhi who had muffed up his first chance at governance.

According to a DMK legislator in Madras, "We had to wait our turn until MGR left the scene. A new generation of voters also cropped up who had not known anything about our rule in the early seventies. Even then, we had to apologise time and again in public, election after election before we were accepted," he says. Jayalalitha has apparently not learnt from history.

Also present at the launch of AIADMK's campaign at Madras was Jayalalitha's controversial confidant, Sasikala Natarajan. The head of Natarajan's equally controversial husband was bobbing behind the dais.

Sasikala was also reportedly present when Jayalalitha hosted a dinner in honour of her electoral allies, including the two BJP leaders, A B Vajpayee and L K Advani, at her Poes Garden home.

"We thought Jayalalitha would not introduce Sasikala into the picture again, she having come to personify everything that's wrong with the AIADMK in the voters's eyes." That was apparently why Sasikala was kept out of the AIADMK conference at Tirunelveli earlier this year. But Sasikala's presence at the launch of the AIADMK campaign reflects what the voter sees as Jayalalitha's confidence that she will return to centrestage.

"The more she talks about herself, her government and the like, the better will it be for us," says a TMC official. In the DMK-TMC marriage, the Jain Commission report cannot be discussed, the bogey of Jayalalitha comes handy, he says. First these parties were worried Jayalalitha would clamber on the 'stability' bandwagon, a safer bet after the shaky ride with the United Front. But she didn't. "Jayalalitha has not deserted us," he says.

One of Jayalalitha's aide has an explanation: "We lost all the Lok Sabha berths and won only four assembly seats last time. Whatever happens now can only an improvement. By going on the offensive now, Jayalalitha hopes to interpret the poll verdict as approval for her and disapproval of the DMK-TMC's political campaign and legal actions."

Tell us what you think of this report