`It will be good for Tamil Nadu if Moopanar becomes prime minister'

A Ganesh Nadar in Madras

Sitaram Kesri's decision to withdraw support to the United Front government caught many people off guard, including those in the Congress.

In Tamil Nadu the Tamil Maanila Congress was gearing up for its first anniversary on April 2. It had also on the agenda a meeting to discuss the budget proposals in Madurai. The anniversary bash was to be held in Coimbatore. The former has been scrapped, the latter deferred. "How can we have our 'Mahanadu' without our leader?" asked one obsequious TMC worker.

Satyamurthi Bhavan is situated in Royapettai, Madras. It was the head office of the Indian National Congress, then the Congress(O), again Congress(I) and now the year-old TMC.

There were posters of G K Moopanar everywhere, with the designer’s name printed just a little smaller than Moopanar’s.

At the doorstep, a vendor was peddling dhoties, khadi and turkish towels, all made specially for the TMC, with the borders garnished with red, white and green stripes.

Another peddler was pushing party flags, photographs and posters featuring of Moopanar. There were no posters of other party functionaries. Not even Finance Minister P Chidambaram figured though there was one poster of filmstar-politician Rajnikanth. The chanawalla was doing brisk business. People were walking around looking important. The fatter ones looked more important.

The first floor office was adorned with touched up pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Kamaraj and Rajiv Gandhi – and, of course, Moopanar.

TMC general secretary S G Vinayagamoorthy said he felt Moopanar would be a nice prime minister to have. "We are trying to convince him to accept if the situation arises," he said. The phone rang. It was somebody complaining about the bad behaviour of TMC men. Vinayagamoorthy told the caller that some elements always get into a large organisation to spoil the name of its leaders. "We should not allow this nonsense to go on…"

A partyman walked in and presented the general secretary with a shawl. A boy promptly gathered the shawal and shoved it into a cupboard. Pleasantries over, the partyman went away.

Vinayagamoorthy returned to matters of state. "First, the Congress will try to form a government," he said. "After they fail, we'll come into the picture, maybe with Moopanar, maybe not." Of course, the new leader of the UF had to be acceptable to all and the natural choice was Moopanar.

The general secretary confided that Moopanar had the "extraordinary capacity to discharge the duties of the prime minister". Moopanar, he declared, was even capable of making the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu sit down together and solve the Cauvery waters and the Alamatti dam issue.

Asked why Moopanar hadn’t already done this, the general secretary said the DMK-TMC relationship was cordial. That didn’t make much sense since the two parties had squabbled during the panchayat elections, when DMK minister Durai Murugan told Union minister Dhanushkodi Adittan not to interfere in the state’s management.

Vinayagamoorthy smiled and said in a family a husband and wife often quarrel, but that didn’t mean the family would split. There was no time to ask if the analogy also hinted at trouble back home because just then a young boy walked him prostrated himself before Vinayagamoorthy. Unfazed, the TMC general secretary blessed him and asked him to sit down.

TMC vice-president Abdul Khader felt it would be good for Tamil Nadu if Moopanar became the prime minister. Just as Deve Gowda was good for Karnataka. Moopanar had refused the job once. Khader was certain Moopanar wouldn't repeat the mistake, "because it is for the good of the nation".

The TMC women went into ecstasies when told Moopanar could become prime minister. "God bless you for saying such a thing," gushed one. Vinayagamoorthy had already done it.

In sharp contrast, the DMK office was deserted. There were no partymen visible and a surly clerk looked at me with a nasty eye and said, "Come after 6 pm. Everybody will be here then."

I told him the car of the leader of the Opposition was outside. "He didn’t come here. He must be upstairs at Sun TV." The Sun TV receptionist was a good lot prettier than the clerk. She looked quizzical, and then puzzled. She had never heard about the leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu assembly. And nobody could say where he had gone to earth in the building.