'Justice prevailed' but TN's future seems bleak

The infighting in the AIADMK has rendered it weak and on par with the DMK and other parties, says R Rajagopalan.

Justice has prevailed, said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam after All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader V K Sasikala’s conviction by the Supreme Court in the 1996 disproportionate assets case on Tuesday.

But how will it affect Tamil Nadu politics in particular and national politics in general, is a question that needs to be asked.

After the 2016 assembly elections, with the AIADMK getting a thumping majority, the state had a stable government, all thanks to Jayalalithaa (Amma)'s charisma.

But now, what is the future of the AIADMK and Tamil Nadu? Will the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gain a foothold in the state?

It is not only the politics of the state which has been hit by uncertainty since Jayalalithaa's death in December 2016. But, due a crisis in governance, the industrial and financial sector is also affected.

In other words, the rule of law in Tamil Nadu has been absent since September 2016, when Jayalalithaa was first hospitalised.

On the other hand, the main opposition party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is also not that strong. Party chief M Karunanidhi is 95-years-old and not keeping well. He has kept himself away from politics for quite some time.

The DMK is also a party ruled by one family, which has got lots of internal differences. M K Salin is now in control, but Kanimozhi, Karunanidhi’s daughter, who is a Rajya Sabha member, does not get along too well with her brother. Such is the state of the internal dynamics in Tamil Nadu’s principal opposition party.

The differences between the AIADMK cadres are not a secret either.

In the two months since Jayalalithaa’s demise, the party workers were distancing themselves from Sasikala, though the MLAs remained with her because she held huge reserve funds of the AIADMK.

But with Tuesday's apex court judgment sending Sasikala back to jail, the entire Tamil Nadu has breathed a sigh of relief.

People were against Sasikala not only because of the corruption charges against her but the way she was coercing the people in power to establish the rule of her family in the state. She had also accumulated lots of benami property, something the court verdict points out.

All this was of course ignored when Jayalalitha was alive. After her death, people’s anger against Sasikala seems to have erupted, especially after she was seen to be jockeying herself into a position of power.

Now, AIADMK leaders who were unhappy with Sasikala staying at the personal bungalow of Jayalalitha in Chennai's Poes Garden, have begun a signature campaign to convert it into a national memorial.

Sasikala was also accused of ‘not providing proper medical treatment to Jayalalithaa’, as she was personally taking care of Jayalalithaa to the exclusion of all others. That is why Pannerselvam announced an inquiry commission, headed by a sitting Judge, to probe the circumstances surrounding Jayalalithaa’s death.

Will a split in the AIADMK help the BJP in the July 2017 presidential election?

The AIADMK has 37 MPs, the third largest group in the Lok Sabha. But the AIADMK MPs do not have a voice in the House. They often do not join the rest of the opposition and the BJP too does not need their support.

The future of Tamil Nadu would not have been this bleak if only the DMK was stronger. As for the other political parties in the state, they have no stronghold.

Each party wants to cater to a particular community and caste. And the district parties, which are more in number, divide votes.

Looking at all this, the future of Tamil Nadu certainly appears bleak. To make things worse, there is no tall leader like Rajagopalachari, Annadurai, or Kamaraj to steer the state out of the crisis.

Photograph: R Senthil Kumar/PTI Photograph.

R Rajagopalan is a senior journalist in New Delhi who has been reporting on Tamil Nadu affairs for decades.