Hyderabad (Telangana):With the two major Dravidian parties – DMK and AIADMK – dwarfing all parties in Tamil Nadu and alternately ruling the State for the past 24 years, smaller parties are always aligning with either of the two majors. However, among the so-called smaller parties, the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), floated on the plank of Tamil nationalism and fully under the control of Seeman, erstwhile film director, has been cultivating a strong base of followers throughout Tamil Nadu. Its first conference was conducted in Madurai on May 18, 2009.
There are youths in large numbers behind him, showering their praises on him and treating him as their elder brother and guide even as he has been proclaiming in a thundering and booming voice that he is out to eliminate the Dravidian parties which he holds responsible for the Eelam genocide.
His detractors allege that he has crafted and floated an attractive and glorious image about himself, always flaunting a photo showing him in the company of the LTTE leader Prabhakaran and through that image, he has been attracting droves of followers, most of them young. Refuting the accusation, his supporters say that Seeman has taken Prabhakaran to the present generation, which may not have known much about the crusader of Tamil Eelam and consequently, created a strong, youthful support base.
Seeman’s admirers point to the already historically proven fact that a party, which goes down well with youths in droves and wins their vote bank, can withstand the onslaughts of time and become a force to reckon with in the political arena. They cite the classic example of the DMK, which caught the fancy of tens and thousands of youths during the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation and ultimately, with their support, ascended the throne in Tamil Nadu in 1967.
Political analysts attribute his supporters’ rock-solid faith in his leadership to his practice of going it alone in the elections. As done in the past elections, in the 2021 Assembly elections (scheduled for April 6) too, Seeman has refused to ally with either of the Dravidian majors – DMK and AIADMK – and is facing the elections alone.
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Seeman is also confronted with the strident criticism that he is a rabble-rouser, instigating an emotional conflagration among the youths, he himself roaming about and appearing on the stage as a volcano of emotions.
That the film director-turned-politician has been using the picture of Prabhakaran, leader of a banned outfit, in the public domain is liable to attract legal action against him. But no case has so far been registered against him on this count. The reason for this is, his critics allege, that he has a secret truck with the ruling party in the State (AIADMK) and at the Centre (BJP).
Way back in 2011, Seeman’s NTK boycotted the Assembly elections. Yet in all constituencies, he went on the campaign trail against Congress. He was also telling the voters that if the ‘leaves’ (AIADMK’s ‘Two Leaves’ symbol) bloom, Eelam will blossom.
Subsequently, the NTK for the first time jumped into the fray in the 2016 Assembly elections and recorded 1.1 per cent votes. Similarly, in the 2019 parliamentary elections, his party recorded 4 per cent of votes and in the local body elections, 10 per cent votes.
There is a general criticism that Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), which takes on the DMK ideologically, the Congress racially, and the BJP from the perspective of principles, always spares the ruling AIADMK.
But the NTK activists say that they are against the Dravidian ideology. “Since the AIADMK has the Dravidian ideology only for namesake, we treat the DMK as our enemy and oppose it,” they affirm.