Tamil Maanila Congress may chart an independent course soon

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

With Tamil Maanila Congress chief G Karupaiah Moopanar proposing Vice-President K R Narayanan for the presidency, and taking a potshot at the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in Tamil Nadu in his Republic Day message, the party is getting ready to chart out an independent political course.

The route, the vehicle and the timing will be decided by the AIADMK's performance in the Pudukottai assembly by-election on February 8.

By proposing Narayanan's name to succeed incumbent Shankar Dayal Sharma, Moopanar has stolen the show not just from Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, but also from the Left Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party. While the Left has always favoured Narayanan, the BJP has been toying with the idea of mooting Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Kanshi Ram fro the top job.

Narayanan's dalit background means the BJP will find it hard to oppose the vice-president's candidature in these days of 'social re-engineering.'

There is nothing new in Moopanar's declaration that the TMC will not merge with the Congres. That has always been his line. He would like the Congress to join the United Front government, but he is not averse to backing his old party if the UF government were to fall and it needed the TMC's support to form a government.

Moopanar's stand is clear: The TMC will not destabilise the Deve Gowda regime. If the Congress wants to pull the rug from under Deve Gowda's feet, he knows he cannot stop it from doing so.

What is also interesting is his criticism of the TMC's ally, the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu. In a Republic Day message, he said, 'A mere change of governments will not solve problems. Only the good performance of the new governments could meet the expectations of the people,'

The success achieved by the state and central governments in overcoming difficulties, problems and economic constraints alone could demonstrate that the new governments were different from the previous ones, Moopanar's statement added, making a pointed reference to the spurt in the prices of essential commodities.

While the statement maintained an even tenor in true Moopanar style, it is being interpreted to imply his evolving disenchantment with the ruling DMK in the state.

Moopanar has used his 'messages' on Republic Day and Independence Day to make a point about governments in Tamil Nadu. In 1992, he fired his first salvo at then chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaram and her AIADMK -- political ally of the Congress, of which he was then a part -- in his Independence Day speech. Jayalalitha was the flavour of the month with the Congress's national leadership when Moopanar called for the 'restoration of Kamaraj rule' in the state.

What may decide the timing for a parting of ways between the DMK and the TMC is the performance of the AIADMK candidate in the Pudukottai by-election. Jayalalitha is determined to scale down the winning margin of the ruling DMK nominee, if her candidate cannot win the seat.

The vacancy has been caused by the death of DMK's whip, A Periannan, who won the seat in May by a 42,000 vote margin. The TMC is still an ally of the DMK, and Moopanar is expected to campaign for the ruling party.

Moopanar is ready to wait for his party's turn in forming a government, should the TMC split with the DMK. He expects the AIADMK to lose more ground in the coming months, and this he believes will swell the TMC's ranks.

His strategy essentially provides for the DMK finishing off the AIADMK politically, and the TMC seeking to fill that void in the Opposition. He had suggested this strategy to the then Congress leader, Rajiv Gandhi, for the post-MGR assembly election in the state which the Congress contested all by itself.

The DMK came to power, the Congress finished a distant second, and the AIADMK trailed in third position. But the loss of power in the November 1989 general election made Rajiv change his mind, in favour of reviving the alliance with the AIADMK, on the latter's terms.

Not that Moopanar does not have any problems on his hands, this time round. For his strategy to work in the long run, if at all, it would require about 10 years, or two general elections, if not more.

Going it alone in state politics, now or a little later, would mean the party losing a few of its 20 Lok Sabha seats in the next general election. That may not be to the liking of the TMC MPs, who would like to have the cake and eat it too.