Lose the battle, win the war

Politicians are among the most diligent practitioners of the maxim “pick your battles”. Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay appears to have picked one he cannot win in Parliament, so he can win something more valuable at home.

The meeting with Tamil Nadu MPs that the TVK govt convened on Aug 8 to discuss the Union govt’s delimitation plan to rework Lok Sabha representation was unlikely to draw most MPs. As TOI reported a day earlier, DMK, AIADMK, PMK, DMDK and MNM had decided to stay away. Finally, only 19 (from Congress, VCK, CPI, CPM, IUML and MDMK) of the 57 MPs (39 of Lok Sabha and 18 of Rajya Sabha) attended the meeting, which resolved to move a resolution in the assembly against the delimitation bill.

Here is why Vijay is losing the battle: BJP appears capable of mustering enough support to get the bill passed. DMK, with 22 LS members and eight in RS, is warming up to the idea of supporting the bill after Congress parted ways with it following the assembly election debacle in the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in parleys with erstwhile opponents including Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal and NCP leader Sharad Pawar. TVK, with no MP, has no say in Parliament. Congress and its remaining allies will not add up to defeat the bill.

Here is how Vijay is trying to win the war: Till the assembly election this year, DMK and its president M K Stalin had been at the forefront of the struggle against delimitation. Stalin sought to make the fight for federalism — and his image as its commander — one of the core themes of the election campaign. It also helped him build a national image. Now, with the election lost, DMK is negotiating with the Union govt for an ‘honourable settlement’ over delimitation: increase the LS seats proportionately.

DMK doesn’t have to abandon its opposition to delimitation for Vijay to benefit. It only has to moderate its position enough for Vijay to portray himself as the more uncompromising defender of Tamil Nadu’s federal interests. The all-MPs meeting and the proposed assembly resolution are the first steps towards this political appropriation.

Delimitation is only one part of a larger TVK strategy. TVK’s ambition is not merely to defeat the Dravidian parties electorally. It is to inherit their political capital. It is attempting this with DMK and AIADMK, in different ways. For disgruntled and desperate AIADMK leaders, including some former ministers, TVK has become a refugee camp. At the assembly debate on Cauvery waters last week, PWD minister Aadhav Arjuna said, “This govt is also Ammavin aatchi (Jayalalithaa’s govt).” That was more than a riposte to AIADMK. By invoking Jayalalithaa’s govt as a precedent for his own, Arjuna was effectively claiming a slice of the AIADMK legacy — something that Edappadi K Palaniswami is struggling to preserve for TVK.

TVK has so far not been successful in winning over DMK leaders, so the idea is to snatch some of the programmes and policies that had won popular admiration for that party. The intended inheritance is ideological as well as programmatic. TVK adopted Periyar as one of its five icons when it was founded in Feb 2024; its first budget, meanwhile, broadly continued the welfare architecture built by successive Dravidian govts.

By softening, if not abandoning, his anti-delimitation stand, whether because of the split with Congress or feelers from the BJP — Stalin may have inadvertently handed Vijay ammunition. The TVK president may not yet fire salvos at the Centre, but he now has more gunpowder kept dry at home.

END OF ARTICLE