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The upshot of the great Tamil circus: Jayalalitha needs Moopanar, but not the Congress.

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STATES: TAMIL NADU

Amma Goes To Shop

The upshot of the great Tamil circus: Jayalalitha needs Moopanar but not the Congress

By Arun Ram

	Cat Among Pigeons: Jayalalitha's tie-up with Ramadoss threw Sonia into a tizzy

The Great Chennai Circus, orchestrated by AIADMK General Secretary J. Jayalalitha since the S. Ramadoss-led PMK's entry into her alliance in early February, is attracting many onlookers. If there is anything odd about the show that opened on the eve of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, it is that the audience is as confused as the performers.

With Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) leader G.K. Moopanar vowing to sail or sink with the Congress, the AIADMK combine assumed an amoebic shape. Moopanar wanted a respectable number of seats, believing perhaps that respect is proportional to the number of seats Jayalalitha dishes out. The Congress was in a deeper dilemma: whether to reap electoral benefits by staying in an alliance that includes the PMK, which has been supporting the LTTE, or perish with a "Third Front". Also at stake for the Congress was the chief ministership of Pondicherry, which Jayalalitha has promised to the PMK albeit only for the first half of the tenure should the combine win.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi summoned party leaders from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry and listened to the conflicting voices of emotion and electoral gain. Congress emissaries Ghulam Nabi Azad and Pranab Mukherjee flew down to negotiate, for what they knew not. Comrade Harkishen Singh Surjeet came in time to stop Jayalalitha from announcing her list of candidates. Moopanar kept his mouth shut, lest he found his foot there.

Quite A Handful: Moopanar's almighty problem is trying to balance the Congress and the AIADMK

What followed were many rounds of shadowboxing: "35 seats for TMC and Congress," said Jayalalitha before going on her strategically convenient retreat to Hyderabad. Political observers now predicted a Third Front. Moopanar resolved to be irresolute, giving the Congress high command time to flex non-existent muscles. Jayalalitha sprang a surprise on March 5, entering into a written pact with Ramadoss who walked away with 27 seats in Tamil Nadu and 10 in Pondicherry.

Protests came from unexpected quarters-the Left. While CPI and CPI(M) leaders in Tamil Nadu gave off-the-record statements decrying Jayalalitha's unilateral announcement, CPI Pondhicherry Secretary N. Kalainathan and CPI(M) District Secretary T. Murugan said they would acknowledge only the Congress as head of the "secular front".

Jayalalitha was quick to rebuke the Left for rushing to the press. Just when the communists started squirming and the caste-based parties and the Congress appeared to be convincing Moopanar of the viability of a Third Front, Jayalalitha dangled another carrot: 45 seats, which the TMC could share with the Congress. The number was encouraging, but the Congress' intransigence on keeping Pondicherry to itself wasn't. Moopanar was even more confused. His TMC colleague P. Chidambaram tried to impress upon him that he should not settle for less than 60 seats.

Insiders say Jayalalitha might be willing to give even 50 seats to the Congress and the TMC, but won't yield to the demand for first shot at the Pondicherry chief ministership to the Congress. "The AIADMK has been flexible," Jayalalitha said on March 6, "there are still 20 seats in Pondicherry. If the Congress is willing to be part of the alliance, we will give the second term to it." She even suggested Tamil Nadu be delinked from Pondicherry, where the TMC and the Congress could form a separate alliance. Sonia's party is not excited by the idea.

In waiting endlessly, Jayalalitha is making her desperation apparent. She realises that the TMC is not a party with a vote bank, but she needs Moopanar. Says an AIADMK source: "With Moopanar on her side, Amma can argue that the corruption cases were foisted on her. Here is a leader who was part of the combine that routed her in the 1996 elections on the anti-corruption plank now sharing the dais with her." For Moopanar that will be humiliating. But so will be the defeat of the Third Front, which, according to journalist and Jayalalitha's foe-turned-mentor Cho Ramaswamy, "will come third in every constituency".

The grapevine has it that Moopanar will ditch the Congress to sail with Jayalalitha if Sonia sticks to her nothing-to-do-with-PMK attitude. That is Jayalalitha's dream. A Congress-TMC break-up will render both weaker-and leave Moopanar at the lady's mercy.

MetroScape
Triple Act
What I would love to do more than anything else in the world is to write another play," says Gurcharan Das. "But I don't know if I have the courage." He should have dollops of it, going by the audience reaction to his 9 Jakhoo Hill--performed to mark the release of Three English Plays by Das --at Delhi's India Habitat Centre
last week.
more...

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