India: Tamil Politics: BJP woos actor Rajanikanth

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

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Part-I

For too long, the ultra Hindutva party BJP has been at work to trap important persons like film actors to campaign for the party candidates at polls and it has made some success in its efforts to saffronize cinema field as well. .

Now that BJP and its allies are favoured parties in North, West and elsewhere, they have not been able to cut enough ice in two South Indian states, namely, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.  This remains a major concern and worry for the BJP which has already won assembly polls in another South Indian state, Karnataka, and won parliamentary seats in Andhra Pradesh.

Although BJP has won seats in Tamilnadu to represent the party in both parliament and state assembly,  Kerala has so far denied that privilege to the Hindutva parties. Perhaps Kerala is the only state which never sent even an MLA to the assembly and in spite of strenuous efforts it failed to get a senior BJP leader from capital Thiruvananthapuram where the Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor managed to scrape through, upsetting all strategies of BJP and allies for the state. 

Part- II

 The reason why BJP could not take roots in Kerala while it did so well in other southern states is very simple.

BJP always tries for alliances with major parties to win seats first and come to power later.  BJP secured the alliances of two Dravidian parties, alternatively and win seats; it could not get the support of major parties in Kerala- Congress and communist making its entry into Kerala politics as a powerful party in the state impossible.  DMK and AIADMK had earlier made alliances with BJP to defeat each other but BJP made full use of the available opportunities for expanding its  vote bank.  This time both parties  gave up BJP but  still it managed to win  two seats on the strength it  has already managed  for years  of work in TN, thanks  to DMK and AIADMK.

It should be noted  here that  BJP’s emergence as a national party was  possible because of the Emergecy  declared by Congress government to save Indira Gandhi when Allahabad High Court  rejected her election to Parliament. In the general poll conducted after the emergency period, Jana Sangh became a part of anti-Congress  alliance and won many seats which  it retained and increased further expended even after BJP came into existence. BJP sit h eo

Clearly, the BJP is the only party that has greatly benefited from emergency and by anti-Congress alliances and the party played its card very well, fooling all other parties in a conspiratorial manner.  Not surprisingly, BJP came to power in many states and at the centre by employing a set of strategies, from caste to region to regions but anti-Muslims, anti-Babri Mosque, and anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan platforms   got many fans among the fanatic sections of secular India. 

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Part-III

The Lankan Tamil issue with which people of Tamil Nadu engaged for years of has now does not bother the Tamils now.  The Dravidian politicians who are committed to Lankan Tamils have no effective tool for the poll purposes now.

 Congress party which ruled the state for years until it was replaced by a Dravidian party DMK with many film personalities in it only to be replaced later by AIADMK of film star MGR, is still struggling to find its place.  But BJP has been on the rise in the state thanks to help from DMK and AIADMK.

Now BJP wants to use film heroes to grab power in the state. The major concern of RSS/BJP is to make Raja Sabha become BJP dominated so that Constitution could be safely amended to make India a Hindu religion state and for which it needs more states. Tamil Nadu seems to be on RSS/BJP’s priority list.

BJP is planning for the TN assembly poll in 2015. It is a trillion dollar question if Rajanikanth magic can yield   impressive gains for BJP to capture power in state, where great statesmen like K. Kamaraj had worked selflessly for the Tamil state and India to become the chief minister of the state and Congress party’s national president.  Given the powerful presence of Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK and continued political   shows of Karunanidhi’s DMK, one doubts if Rajanikanth’s active campaign, if at all he would choose to do it,  could bring the BJP to power, though he could add  a few more seats to BJP’s communal bag.  BJP indeed calculates only that kind of benefits from brining him to poll scene on false promise of chief-minstership. .   

BJP and other Hindu communal parties are trying to get more and more Tamils into RSS/BJP fold so that it could get more seats  in the assembly elections to be held in 2015. . 

Now that its hidden political agenda of misusing Dravidian parties for its own expansionism, is  known to Dravidian parties, BJP now wants to reach out  to  Tamils by wooing  Tamil mega star Rajanikanth  to join the BJP  with the promise of making him  the next  chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

Reports suggest that BJP  and RSS have  long  making contacts with him directly and through other sources  to book the most popular Tamil film star for the purposes of BJP campaign but Rajanikanth has so far declined to take  the offer at the face value.  

LK Advance, former Deputy PM, praised   Rajanikanth as the real stylish super star , but  Rajanikanth did not move an inch towards the communal outfit. 

However,  BJP believes in persuasion tactics as well and it hopes  one day Rajanikanth also, like many other big guys have done, fall into BJP fold. ,