Advani spares rivals in Tamil Nadu, keeps options open

N Sathiya Moorthy in Tirunelveli

In English, Shencottai translates as 'Red Fort'. But there has been no history of any fort, leave alone a red fort standing in the place.

Yet, when BJP president Lal Kishinchand Advani entered Shencottai town atop his Swarna Jayanthi Rath on Sunday afternoon, full four hours behind schedule, he could not have bargained for more. For a party that hopes to capture power at the Centre on its own in the next Lok Sabha election, whenever they are held, this 'Red Fort' in the South should have been an auspicious place to start off the rath yatra through Tamil Nadu.

For the BJP cadres in Shencottai, as also the nearby town of Tenkasi, it was a jubilant moment. Advani was visiting the town for the first time, after cancelling his programmes on earlier occasions.

''I can now claim the Rs 1,000 I had wagered with the district president of the CPI-M-led farmer's organisation,'' says Kumar, a 31-year-old BJP worker from Therpathu village, who graduated to the party last year after spending nearly 15 years with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. As part of the deal, the Marxist would have his head tonsured. ''Advani thus saved my head and saved my money,'' he quips.

Both Shencottai and Tenkasi fall under under the Tenkasi Lok Sabha constituency, held by Union Minister M Arunachalam for the past six terms. Arunachalam himself has been a minister at the Centre for most part of the last 17 years. Yet Advani does not refer critically to the lack of development in the region.

''I could not have looked for a more auspicious occasion,'' Advani tells the crowd at Shencottai. ''And I am privileged and honored,'' he adds. The reference is to his garlanding the statue of Vanchi Iyer, a martyr of the freedom movement, who shot then Tirunelveli district collector Ash at point-blank range when his train halted at the nearby Maniyachi junction, en route to Madras. The railway station has since been named as Vanchi-Manyachi.

Obviously, Advani is exhausted after a full week on the road, since his rath yatra was flagged off at the August Kranti Maidan in Bombay on May 18 by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

He started the day at Alapuzha in central Kerala, and traversed the hill country before entering Tamil Nadu. He had covered 200 km as the day ended at the port town of Tuticorin, where too he addressed a well-attended public meeting.

Advani has obviously read the mood of the people. Not to miss an opportunity to drive home a point, he refers to Hindutva leader Veer Savarkar's book Kaala Paani on his experiences in the Andaman jail during the freedom movement. ''There is a mention of Vanchi and his daring escapade in Kaala Paani.'' he tells the crowd.

Advani does not stop there. He also refers to Veera Pandiya Kattabomman, a local chieftain, who fought the British and was executed in public. ''The tendency is to refer to the 1857 battle as the First War of Independence. But long before the North woke up to British imperialism and fought the foreign rulers, here in this land, you had Veer Pandiya Kattabomman,'' he said. ''And Kattaboman picture is also on the rath's sides,'' he adds.

And it is this that he elaborates upon at Tenkasi, later in the day, obviously with a finger on the pulse of at least a section of the local population. ''I have not seen many Tamil films,'' he apologises, just as he had done for not being able to talk to his audience in the local language.

''But a long time back, I saw a Tamil film by the name Kattabomman. Sivaji Ganesan's portrayal of the local folk hero was superb,'' he said, to a thunderous applause. Obviously, Advani knows that a former Congress legislator from Tenkasi which he refers to as the Kashi of the South had walked away from the party when Sivaji Ganesan deserted it, only to found a failed political organisation of his own.

This is one part of the exercise Advani has mastered in the last few months. The last time round he was in Madras, at a citizens's reception to him on his being cleared by the Delhi high court in the hawala case, he had made a pointed reference to Tamil superstar Rajnikanth. ''The day I was cleared by the court Rajnikanth called me to congratulate me,'' he disclosed. Today, he is in the North, visiting Rishikesh, and I am here in the South, en route to the Tirupati temple,'' he added.

Advani then refers to the local political hero, K Kamaraj, who hailed from southern Tamil Nadu. He then puts Kamaraj alongside the pantheon of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, B R Ambedkar, and of course, Veer Savarkar, whose pictures adorn one side of his rath. ''Is it for the likes of Sukh Ram and Laloo Yadav to loot the nation and its people that our great leaders drove the white man away?'' he asks.

''I am not a candidate for the Presidency,'' Advani tells journalists at his next halt, Tirunelveli. A section of the media had been confused by BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu's declaration at Tenkasi that a party leader would hoist the national flag at Delhi on January 26. Naidu may have had Independence Day in mind, but he inadvertently referred to Republic Day. ''The BJP has not yet taken a decision on the Presidential elections,'' Advani adds.

For an up-and-coming party in Tamil Nadu, the reception that Advani received was good for a hot Sunday afternoon. Even at the height of the anti-Jayalalitha wave that catapulted the DMK-TMC combine to power last year, the BJP polled 12,000 votes in Shencottai and 10,000 in Tenkasi assembly seats. The party's nominee in the Tenkasi parliamentary constituency had polled a respectable 65,000 votes.

Unlike at Punalur, his last stopover in Kerala, there is no criticism of any major party, a job which he leaves to Naidu who enthralls his audience with his swift speech. At Punalur, less than 50 km from Shenocottai, Advani came down heavily on the Congress and the CPI-M, the two political majors in Kerala.

In Tamil Nadu, the BJP is keeping its post-poll options open, with the hope of negotiating with the DMK, the TMC and the AIADMK, for their support in forming a government at the Centre. With the result, Advani is bereft of any political declarations that would prophesise a BJP government in the state.

Nor is there any mention about the local parties, favourable or not-so-favourable. Even his reference to Laloo Prasad Yadav does not mention the CBI case in detail as questions may be raised about the BJP's approach to a similar case involving Jayalalitha when she was chief minister. Nor is there any mention about the CPI-M denying TMC supremo G K Moopanar the prime ministership, though there is a passing reference to the Marxists's opposition to any leader from the South coming to occupy the post.

But his crowd, though not mammoth by Tamil Nadu standards, is impressed. ''He is definitely a cut above the rest,'' says Bose, a BJP activist. ''Mind you, the Meenakshipuram conversions took place only miles from here, and yet, he did not make any reference to the same. He knows it would have only fuelled the fire of caste tension prevailing in the neighboring areas now, and this is not an opportunity that any other political leader would have let pass by.''