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Waiting for Rajni

With its campaign yet to pick up in some key constituencies, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Tamil Maanila Congress combine in Tamil Nadu anxiously awaits the return of Tamil superstar Rajnikanth, to ensure another landslide win.

The idea is to produce a video cassette featuring the star, with either new footage or an improvised version from the 1996 election. But, only after clearing the enterprise with Rajnikanth.

''It is not that we need his backing in all the 39 constituencies,'' argues a DMK leader. "We hope to win 30 to 35 seats on our own, but to ensure a clean sweep we require that extra push. Rajnikanth can give us that, through his direct appeal to 'neutral voters', and through his direction to his fan clubs."

Though the ruling alliance was elated by Rajnikanth calling on both Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and TMC supremo G K Moopanar before undertaking a politically significant holiday to Hong Kong, they are now confused by the tone and tenor of his public appeal.

Initially interpreted as one favouring the DMK-TMC combine in this election, the two parties now find that Rajnikanth had left a lot unsaid -- particularly relating to his fans working for the combine.

'I do not want to elaborate on the point, and my fans know what I mean,' was all that Rajnikanth would say while issuing his election appeal for voters in general and his fans in particular to 'vote for the DMK-TMC alliance, as it continues as before.' However, he told his fans that 'elections have now become an annual affair like Diwali, and you cannot have Diwali all the time. You cannot waste your time on elections and electoral campaigns, all the time.'

This was interpreted to mean that Rajnikanth still had his sympathies intact for the Bharatiya Janata Party but would not like the return of the AIADMK under Jayalalitha. ''He might not have issued a statement this time in the first place," says an informed source, ''But Jayalalitha returning to centre-stage, if not to power, would imply that she was all right, and that Rajnikanth had lost his hold over the masses.''

If a section of the local media sympathetic to the DMK-TMC combine has highlighted Rajnikanth's appeal to the voters, ignoring the 'Diwali reference,' that is not to be. Apart from Rajnikanth's instructions for his fans not to waste time campaigning for anyone in particular, the fans themselves have their own problems with the ruling alliance, particularly at the lower-levels.

While Rajnikanth fans are conspicuous by their absence at DMK-TMC campaign meetings, some of them have squabbled with the ruling front's candidates. In Tiruchi, for instance, a Rajnikanth fan filed his nomination against TMC candidate S Adaikalaraj, a member of the dissolved House and a personal friend of the superstar. Elsewhere, they protested when the Rajnikanth fans association's red, white and blue flag was tied to the vehicle of another film star Chandrasekhar, a campaigner for the DMK.

''They used us in the last election, but ignored us completely later,'' charges Annadurai, a fan from Chittalapakkam from the neighbouring district of Chingleput. ''We have come here to take instructions from Sathyanarayana as to what we should do," he adds, pointing to a group of friends. Sathyanarayana is Rajnikanth's aide who looks after the fans asssociation. He travelled to Tiruchi after the rebel filed his nomination papers, and has distanced the fans from the man concerned.

Rajnikanth fans attribute their problems with the DMK-TMC combine to more than one reason. At the grassroot-level, they say they are seen as a potential challenge to aspiring politicians from either side. ''There is a lot of shadow-boxing between the DMK and the TMC on the one hand, and between the DMK-TMC combine and the BJP, on the other. Rajnikanth has let the impression gain ground that he favours an impossible combine of the BJP and TMC. It has not helped matters in any way,'' according to a source in the fans association.

Rajnikanth is scheduled to return to Madras, in time to cast his vote in the Madras Central constituency on Monday. Says a TMC leader, "We have a hotch-potch video cassette ready, bits of his speech during the last election -- 'Even god cannot save Tamil Nadu if Jayalalitha is voted back to power' was the famous line -- and powerful scenes from his films."

Of course, there is always the song from Annamalai: Rekkai-katti-parakkuthada-Annamali cycle which inspired the then nascent TMC to opt for the bicycle as its electoral symbol.

The TMC, in particular, faces problems in some key constituencies in southern Tamil Nadu which go to the polls on Sunday next, February 22. ''Right now, we are sure of winning up to 32 seats, not that anyone expects us to repeat the clean sweep of last time," says one DMK official. "We are now confident that with an extra push, we can actually repeat it.'' And Rajnikanth, the two parties are convinced, is that 'extra push', whether or not the voters share that optimism.

Elections '98

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