Chennai: State autonomy under attack turned out to be a handle for the DMK to attack the AIADMK as well after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's scathing attack on the Modi government in Parliament on states being deprived of their powers. Besides social justice, the BJP's apparent push for One Nation one Election, Ration Card and Registration, Communalism, too, has entered the campaign after the Gandhi vs Godse debate resurfacing once again. CM Stalin had urged that the heirs of Godse should not get a hold in the state. Unlike in the past, the civic polls this time witnessed the campaign having taken an unusual shift from the mundane to an ideological plane.
It was an unusual civic election in the Dravidian heartland. The dust has settled down after a fiery campaign and the polling was peaceful and incident free barring stray incidents with the counting of votes slated for Tuesday. Unusual, since the prime players had elevated the campaign from the mundane to issues of national significance. Never before Tamil Nadu had witnessed such a leap in the poll narrative to the local bodies, which were thus far fought on local issues.
With the saffron party deciding to go it alone by snapping its alliance with the AIADMK, the dynamics of the campaign, too, has changed. Though its vote base continues to remain around a mere two per cent, the intention of the BJP was to garner more political space and visibility so as to position itself as a future contender for power. It is also propelled by the fact that the principal opposition AIADMK has failed to play the role of an effective opposition. No wonder that Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin turned it into an ideological battle of saffron versus social justice wherein Tamil pride, state autonomy, federalism came into play to corner both the AIADMK and the BJP.
“As Gujarat Chief Minister, Modi was very vocal about the rights of states. But, he had forgotten them after becoming the Prime Minister. Where are the GST arrears, Disaster Relief Fund, Projects for Tamil Nadu, importance for Tamil? There won't be any response from you. You can't fool the Tamil people with a 'Vanakkam',” was how Stalin targeted the BJP in one of his many virtual campaigns.
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Explaining why he was telling these in a campaign for the civic poll, the Chief Minister said, “ The Centre has drastically slashed the subsidies for foodgrains and fertilisers, cut the allocation for MNREGA. After the GST regime, the revenue for the states goes to the Centre. The recent deluge has shown how Tamil Nadu is being discriminated against. Now, the 'One nation One Registration' mooted by the Centre will further rob the remaining resources of the States, which are the pillars of the nation.” Furthermore, in his view, the wrong economic policies pursued by the Modi government since 2014 had crippled the textile and hosiery industries in Coimbatore and Tirupur.
Concentration of powers at the Centre, Stalin warned, is a threat to federalism. “The BJP at the Centre is bent upon amassing all powers with the Union government. The One Nation One Election slogan is nothing, but a cloak for this. The Citizenship Amendment Act, which would deprive the citizenship of Muslim minorities it is also against the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. People of this country, irrespective of religion and language, should be accorded equal rights,” he asserted.
The National Entrance cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical courses continued to dominate the discourse in the election with former Chief Minister and AIADMK Co-Coordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) and BJP president K Annamalai charging the DMK complicit in introducing the national level examination during the UPA government. This prompted Stalin to dare EPS for an open debate on the issue.
Communalism was another issue of focus in this election as the issue of Godse Vs Gandhi resurfaced once again. Stalin had asserted that the 'heirs of Godse should not be allowed to gain a foothold in the land of the Self Respect Movement. However, the BJP had tried in vain to capitalise on the suicide of a girl student at a minority institution in Thanjavur district as a case of forced conversion. Even a couple of days before the polling, the ABVP, students wing of the Sangh Parivar, attempted to lay siege to the Chief Minister's residence.
This shift in the narrative, according to analysts, goes on to prove that the political dynamics in Tamil Nadu is not bereft of ideological underpinnings. “It is a surprise and a welcome signal that ideological issues have come to the fore in this election. Given the de-politicisation that had crept in the past decade, this change in discourse is a blessing in disguise. For the DMK, too, this would help consolidate the anti-Modi and anti-BJP mobilisation that gives it political capital. But, the BJP will find it hard to gain more space when the narrative is turned to the ideological plane with rationalist leader Periyar remaining a stumbling block in its attempts,” explains R Thirunavukarasu, teaching sociology at the University of Hyderabad.
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