The artcle written by Col Sundar who stood for recent election...
Visit his two sites
www.thejawantv.info
www.voteforcolonelsundar.com
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*CONGRESS IN TAMIL NADU*
*Lt Col CR Sundar*
My lawyer is Advocate Shankar, a shrewd, 40 years old bachelor
who is superb in court craft. For me he filed the Public Interest Litigation
when I was struggling to stop the DMK goons from establishing a Sewage
Treatment Plant in the Madambakkam lake. We won. And he is a die hard
Congressman. He did not listen to me when I asked him to join me and build a
political party for me.
Being a Mudaliar he is also related to Jayanthi Natarajan. Now, who is
Jayanthi Natarajan?
First some background. From 1954 to 1963 K Kamaraja Nadar was
the Chief Minister. Around 1963 when Indira Gandhi was in the ascendency she
and Kamaraj hatched Kamaraj plan whereby all senior Congress leaders in the
States were asked to resign their posts and work to revitalise the Congress.
Accordingly Kamaraj resigned and handed over the State of Madras, as it was
then called, to M Bakthavatsalam.
Bakthavatsalam in a brief rule of just four years (1963-1967)
earned a very bad name for himself and his Party. Bhakthavatsalam was called
`Paththu Latcham' (ten lakhs). That was said to be the bribe he would take
to do favours. This was long long before Mr. 10% of Pakistan. And the motto
of congress `Vande mataram' was pilloried with heaped scorn as `Vandu
yemaathrom' (we come and swindle you.)
Simultaneously the adolescent DMK carried out its anti-Hindi
agitation with an oomph not seen since the Independence struggle.
Bakthavatsalam had neither the moral strength nor the acumen to deal with
this tumult. The net result was that power went to the hands of DMK and
Congress went into oblivion. In every subsequent election they allied with
one party or the other leading to emergence of a number of splinter groups.
Bakthavatsalam had a daughter who is Sarojini Varappan, a social
worker. Jayanthi Natarajan is his grand daughter through his son. I asked
Advocate Shankar to take me and Ushi to meet Jayanthi. It was arranged. Brig
Mohan Thomas, my neighbour and friend, along with Mrs Mariam Thomas tagged
along. Personally, Jayanthi is a gracious lady; elegant, refined and above
all charming. We spent nearly an hour-and-a-half with her. As we all know
she is eloquent and expressive. She listened well too and told us about the
thoughts she shared with her Party President Smt Sonia Gandhi. But
strangely, she gave me the impression that she did not want us to join her
party. She said politics is not as easy as we think it to be. She said it is
really tough – I mean this politics. She said that no new members are being
accepted into Congress in Tamil Nadu for the time being. When I mentioned to
her about Rahul Gandhi's visit a month earlier and his call for the people
to join him she said, "Oh, that was for the Youth Congress and even that
membership we closed last Monday".
She told us that she was advising Madam Gandhi at every step on
matters concerning Tamil Nadu. That was plausible. She went on to tell us
about her overall policy advice to Madam Gandhi. That is when I got a
disturbing feeling about the future of Congress in Tamil Nadu. She said that
since Rajiv Gandhi was killed here Delhi Congress does under Sonia Gandhi
does not really care for Tamil Nadu. Therefore Jayanthi's advice to Madam
Gandhi had been that the Congress should not try to capture power in Tamil
Nadu. On the other hand Congress should deftly, cleverly ally themselves
with the winner in Tamil Nadu so that they can get their support in the
Center. I dubbed this the Jayanthi Natarajan Doctrine.
The faint-heartedness of this doctrine is obvious. Perhaps she
learned this timidity on her grand father's laps when the old man was rueing
his life and moaning about deceitfulness of Madras politicians. Here the
point to note is that politicians all over the world, including herself, are
the same and therefore diffidence is not the answer.
However, in the run up to last elections, at the end of Apr 2011
one could discern a modicum of aggressiveness in statements emanating from
Delhi on Tamil Nadu elections and in the adroitness with which Congress
bargained for seats with DMK. This signalled a temporary setback to Jayanthi
Doctrine and some read in it a whiff of ambition on the part of Chidambaram.
But with the elections results giving the congress just a five seats win out
of 63 seats contested all signs of belligerence on the part of the Congress
vanished and once again our Jayanthi is the Tamil Nadu face of Delhi
Congress.
Now comes the juicy question about why the Congress lost. The
Congress lost simply because they could not foresee a Jayalalitha wave and
joined the DMK alliance. In a favourable wave all kinds of candidates get
through. This is what happened in Puduchery. Mr Rangasamy, the ex Congress
CM started a new party. For want of candidates he brought out retired and
hibernating politicians and after duly dusting them up he stood them as
candidates of NR Congress. Lo and behold, all of them are through on account
of a beneficial wave. Tamil Nadu Congress candidates on the other hand,
though they are as undeserving as Congressmen every where else, had no wave
to carry them through.
It should be remembered that DMK rode to power with the help of
a faction of Congress under Rajaji. MGR came to power with the help of
Congress under Indira Gandhi. In 1991 Jayalalitha was with Congress when she
came to power. By 1996 Congress moved to DMK and Karunanidhi became Chief
Minister. In 2001 Congress switched to Jayalalitha and she won. In 2006 DMK
again won with Congress support.
From 2006 to 2011 Karunanidhi ran a minority government with
Congress support. However, he insulted them by not sharing power with them.
This alone should have made them change sides and support the AIADMK. But
Delhi's sensibilities had been hurt by Jayalalitha who on an earlier
occasion had abused Sonia Gandhi. Proverbially politicians are supposed to
be shameless. Surprisingly Congress unnecessarily succumbed to mortification
and refused to deal with Jayalalitha. Therefore they stayed with DMK to
their peril. With mounting scandals of corruption about DMK surfacing every
day people saw Congress as a gainer in the loot.
Today the Congress in Tamil Nadu is at its lowest ebb. So what
is the future of Congress in Tamil Nadu? For the time being they will wait.
In two years the Lok Sabha elections will come about and they are sure to
join Vijayakanth getting a good strength at the center from Tamil Nadu. And
then in the next state elections Congress will help him become CM.
<[email protected]?subject=Re%3A%20Sundar%20%3A%3A%20Congress%20in%20Tamil%20nadu>
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With best wishes
S Chander
