Karunanidhi

The vote-share arithmetic is easy: M. Karunanidhi’s alliance is slightly ahead. But the mood on the ground, less than a week before the April 13 polls, suggests things could be a little more complicated.

“The reality is that the lady (Jayalalithaa) has the edge. We have to see how much of an edge it is,” said an aide of Union home minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram.

Estimates based on the 2006 results and figures obtained from the DMK, Congress and AIADMK offices suggest that Karunanidhi’s party has a 24 per cent base vote.

Add to that the Congress’s 8 per cent, the Pattali Makkal Katchi’s 4 to 5 per cent and the estimated 1 to 2 per cent each of allies Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, Kongunadu Munnetra Kazhagam, Perunthalaivar Makkal Katchi, Manithaneya Makkal Katchi and the Muslim League. That should come roughly to 44-45 per cent.

On the other side, the AIADMK has a slightly larger base vote of 28 per cent compared to its rival’s — but fewer friends. Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam has 8 per cent, the Left has between 4 and 5 per cent, and the Puthiya Tamizhagam has 1 per cent. That’s between 41 and 42 per cent.

One key factor could be Vaiko’s Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which netted nearly six per cent votes in 2006. Vaiko has walked out of Jayalalithaa’s alliance and will not contest the polls; but he has kept everyone guessing about which side he might lean.

Yet there are doubts how much these numbers will count. For starters, the DMK-Congress alliance hit a rough patch following the Centre’s 2G spectrum crackdown that engulfed Karunanidhi’s aides and family members. The mutual distrust worsened after the Congress’s hard bargaining over seat shares.

The feeling in the Congress is that it has been “taken for a ride” by the DMK and the AIADMK for the past 40 years.

“The Dravidian parties have been riding on us, standing on us. We would have been better off if we were riding on them,” said state Congress leader V. Narayanan.

Jayalalithaa

“We only get symbolic recognition; the fruits of labour go to someone else,” said A.R.P. Murugesan, a former treasurer of the Sivaganga district Congress.

Such was the resentment within the Sivaganga Congress that Chidambaram, the MP from the constituency, had to exhort party workers to not let the alliance down.

DMK sources said Karunanidhi had to deliver similar pep talks to his cadres when they asked why he had stuck with the Congress after A. Raja’s arrest and the CBI questioning of the chief minister’s wife Dayalu Ammal and daughter Kanimozhi in the spectrum case.

In-house troubles apart, the Congress-DMK combine has had to contend with Jayalalithaa’s assaults on Karunanidhi’s family, which seem to have had an impact.

A corporate manager who admitted to funding both the principal parties referred to the way M.K. Alagiri “spread terror” in his constituency Madurai and M.K. Stalin extracted “cuts” from every business deal his company struck.

“We remained tongue-tied all these five years when Karunanidhi’s sons did exactly what they wanted. As the AIADMK’s campaign picked up, we felt liberated and emboldened enough to reject the family. It has plundered the state like nobody else has,” he said.

The spin doctors of the Congress and the DMK claim that the spectrum scandal has had limited impact because Jayalalithaa has failed to substantiate her allegations. But in the villages, the refrain is: “Raja has sold the very air we breathe.”

There are reports of villagers painting kollam (rangoli or alpana) on their floors and backyards in the form of Raja’s face so they can trample on it.

DMK sources admit that efforts to counter the graft campaign by selling their government’s “success” in delivering on its 2006 promises have not been “entirely successful”. Ditto their campaign to “cut diamond with diamond” by reminding voters of Jayalalithaa’s “omissions and commissions”.

“We have to choose the lesser evil, and Jayalalithaa is definitely the one in today’s context. At least, she maintained law and order,” said Madurai-based lawyer T. Krishnamoorthi, who runs an advocacy group for “fair and decent” elections.

After Jayalalithaa was voted out in 1996, political observers said her moment of reckoning had come a year earlier at the wedding of the nephew of her friend Sasikala. Even the blase Chennaite, used to the affluent class milling around the jewellery and silk sari outlets, admitted to being dazzled by the display of diamonds at the event.

In November 2010, when the 2G heat was switched on the Karunanidhis, his elder son Alagiri celebrated the marriage of his son in Madurai. Was that his moment of reckoning?

“No, because there were no diamonds on show,” claimed DMK’s Chennai mayor, M. Subrahmanyam.

• Tamil Nadu goes to polls on April 13