Enter Rajinikanth. What to Expect on the Tamil Nadu Political Scene

As 2017 was closing, Tamil actor Rajinikanth let the thunder out of the clouds, having led the people of Tamil Nadu to expect the big sound for over two decades.

Rajinikanth, or Rajini as he is well known, firmly announced last 31^st December that he was entering politics. He further declared he would contest all the 234 TN assembly seats at the next polls – due in 2021 – and would form a political party prior to that election. 

DMK and AIADMK, the two major Dravidian political parties – as also a few active smaller ones – of Tamil Nadu, now fear that some support ground is slipping under their feet. They know that Rajinikanth has captured the imagination of Tamil moviegoers and the Tamil public, more than any other actor, and that it could yield him huge votes. They know that their leaders have no great attraction about them and that Rajini’s fans and admirers are unlikely to switch camps – at any rate in significant numbers. As for DMK leader Karunanidhi who had for long charmed his party men with his communication skills and guttural oratory, he has now lost sheen with old age and illness.

By his announcement, Rajini has also served an advance warning to all other political parties functioning in TN – that Rajini’s new party would oppose all their candidates in each of the 234 assembly constituencies in the state. He has clearly messaged all other parties: “I enter politics not to align with any of you, but to fight and defeat all of you in all assembly seats at election time and keep you out of government”.  This warning and message are specially meant for DMK and AIADMK.

Rajini’s December 31 disclosure has disheartened leaders of other political leaders or groups in TN who are aiming to be the chief minister or some other influential player in the next state government, and beyond. Being out of power in Tamil Nadu could also mean a huge financial deprivation for some aspirants who know the scale of their potential loss.  Facing ill luck and lesser hope, they have good reason to wish Rajini had kept away from politics.

After late MGR parted ways with Karunanidhi and founded his political party AIADMK in 1972, Tamil Nadu votes have been largely shared between DMK and AIADMK.  At the last 2016 TN assembly polls, AIADMK secured a vote percentage of nearly 41%, DMK got about 32% and the balance was split between more than fifteen other parties along with independents and NOTA. With Rajinikanth now entering the fray, even this should be seen as an exaggerated picture of the popular backing for DMK and AIADMK in the changed political scene. In 2016, Rajinikanth was not present on TN’s political landscape, nor did he lend support to any party during that assembly election.  So his fans and admirers had given their votes to other parties, mostly to DMK or AIADMK.  Those Rajini votes, at least most of them, are hence built into the 2016 vote share percentages, viz., AIADMK’s 41% and DMK’s 32%. These two major parties should now witness an erosion in their 2016 score of votes, with Rajini poised to claim much of the votes of his fans, supporters and admirers.  But the woes of DMK and AIADMK, and some smaller parties, do not end here.

In the personality-cult based DMK and AIADMK, their chiefs Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa were the principal vote gatherers for their parties.  With Karunanidhi out of action and Jayalalithaa not alive, many supporters of the two parties who fancied those leaders more than their parties – especially those of AIADMK – could be looking elsewhere.  For those drifting voters, Rajinikanth will be more beckoning than DMK’s M. K. Stalin and certainly more alluring than the lackluster leaders left in AIADMK.  In fact, one reason why Rajinikanth announced his party at this time, is the comfort of nil competition from Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa in harvesting votes during elections.

There are also some broader facts about a nation’s or region’s political life, and some hard realities close to its ground, which Rajinikanth will be aware of.  Let’s take a look.

Voters elect their leaders, but they can choose only from men and women coming forward to lead. Voters do not themselves create a good stock of leaders and then make their pick. So luck plays a key role in people getting a good political leader in a democracy to head their government. 

In a mature democracy, a chosen state leader may turn out to be extraordinary or just good or an also-ran, but as the country’s CEO he generally guards its financial resources and interests and does not deviously squander them or divert national funds into private hands. This is because a mature democracy largely produces vigilant citizens and nurtures a decent crop of leaders, and ensures law enforcement. In an evolving democracy like India, for lack of choice in leaders and out of ignorance too, people often end up electing leaders who do their worst for public welfare and the very best in self-interest, sycophants' interest and in their family interest, law enforcement always remaining slack. Indians have greatly suffered in this manner in the recent past. For decades, Tamil Nadu has taken the worst beating on this front, and Rajinikanth knows this well.  While declaring his entry into politics he also spoke on the sorry plight of Tamil Nadu, as directly as he wished when he said, “In the name of democracy political parties that come to power are looting people in different ways, different modes and different methods…… This needs to change”. 

If Rajinikanth had felt that DMK was all good and AIADMK alone was guilty of serious wrongdoing in TN, he need not form a new party and could have stopped with lending his support to the ‘good DMK’, and if it was the other way he could have stopped with backing the ‘good AIADMK’.  It is clear that he viewed both these parties, being in power alternatively over the past fifty years in Tamil Nadu, as incorrigibly bad on key issues of governance, making a mockery of democracy – and so he felt both of them must be kept out of power.

In deciding to fight both DMK and AIADMK, Rajinikanth must have taken heart from the experience of another Tamil actor, Vijayakanth, who also entered politics and formed his political party, DMDK, in 2005. DMDK contested the 2006 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, in 232 constituencies without any alliance partner.  His party won just one seat, but scooped an impressive 8.5% of votes polled.  That showed there was a large body of voters who were against both DMK and AIDMK, and so Vijayakanth tapped their votes.  Three years later he exposed the continuing keen preference a good many voters had for him, and their sustained distrust of DMK and AIADMK.  That was in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when Vijayakanth’s party contested, again without an alliance partner, across all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu (equivalent to 234 assembly seats) and captured a good 10% of votes polled in the state, though his party did not win any seat. 

Vijayakanth could not, however, build on his laurels because he lost focus, faltered and ultimately aligned with AIADMK in the 2011 state elections in Tamil Nadu. He has other leadership deficiencies too, and of late his health has fallen – he is moving about but is less active. In comparison, Rajinikanth speaks and behaves in a mature way, has better composure, and has a greater potential to take on both DMK and AIADMK.

Vijayakanth has his fan base, but it is certainly much less than Rajinikanth’s.  One measure of their current reach to people and people’s present hopes on them, could be their Twitter following.  It is 44 lakhs for Rajinikanth, and 47 thousand for Vijayakanth.

       There are questions whether Rajinikanth will be up to the demanding role of a chief minister. As the head of a state government, will he wisely choose his advisors? Can he appreciate and handle intricate issues of development and governance? Can he keep a check on his ministers and party MLA’s to ensure they don’t go wayward?  Well, surely these are not easy tasks, and Rajinikanth also does not look naive. He is capable of learning, correcting and improving.  But first things first.

There is none visible in our midst, or in the near future, except Rajinikanth, with the best of capacity, goodness and daring to halt both DMK and AIADMK on their continuous march to the seat of power –  an action for which TN’s people in sizeable numbers gave a hearty thumbs-up when Vijayakanth attempted it in 2006 and in 2009.  Let the poisoned body politic of Tamil Nadu be first detoxified and rescued. It could then be nursed to better health, step by step.  Tamils, if you love your land welcome Rajinikanth and wish him well.

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Copyright © R. Veera Raghavan 2018