Starting from scratch: What Vasan needs to do for his political survival

In 1996, when GK Moopanar, one of the tall national leaders of the Congress, left the party and formed the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), everything was favourable to him. On Monday, when his son and former union minister GK Vasan did the same, the situation was completely different. Moopanar’s strategic move 18 years ago was necessitated by circumstances and was critical for his political survival. He left the party because his boss in Delhi PV Narasimha Rao wanted the Congress to go to elections with Jayalalithaa, who had just finished her highly unpopular first tenure in the state. The only visible wave in the state then was against her. Had Moopanar agreed with Narasimha Rao, it would have decimated the Congress in the state. [caption id=“attachment_1787641” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] GK Vasan. PTI[/caption] Instead, Moopanar dumped Delhi and decamped with the Congress in the state. The elections proved him right. In alliance with the DMK, his TMC won 20 Lok Sabha seats while the combine swept both the Lok Sabha and assembly polls. That Tamil superstar Rajinikanth and his fans had lent open support to the alliance made the victory special. Moopanar had the entire state Congress, including leaders such as P Chidambaram, with him. Most importantly, it was a decision that struck a chord with the public. But for Vasan, there’s hardly anything going right. Other than the former Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Gnanadesikan and former MLA Peter Alphons, no prominent leader have left the Congress camp although his supporters claim that 28 out of the 32 district presidents are with him. While Moopanar could get the entire Congress infrastructure in the state shift with him, Vasan will have to start from scratch. It will require enormous resources, both in terms of people and money. it will also require hard work on a war footing. Vasan is not a grassroots level leader known for his organisational capability or charisma and it will be nearly impossible to replicate the TMC experience of 1996. Then, why did he take such a drastic step even after getting a fair deal from the Congress high command? The most plausible answer is the national mood against the Congress and political opportunism. The state goes to assembly elections in 18 months. In the Lok Sabha elections, the party, despite a double digit vote-share, was a political untouchable and most leaders, including Vasan himself, were scared to contest. Without an ally, its vote-share plunged to 4.2 percent. The party’s electoral isolation is likely to continue in the assembly elections too. By severing his ties with the parent Congress, what Vasan hopes to achieve is the freedom and political acceptability in the state. One of the reasons for the Congress’s untouchability was the UPA government’s dubious stand on Sri Lankan Tamils and its inability to act tough with the Sri Lankan government. In the anti-Sri Lanka agitation that gripped the state in the wake of increasing evidence of war crimes, the only party that couldn’t rise to the occasion was the Congress. Although the state leaders did try to make some noise, the high command failed to respond strategically. Now free to decide his political future, Vasan will certainly hope to align with one of the fronts in the state. It remains to be seen if he goes with either of the Dravidian parties or with the BJP combine. His supporters claim that most of the Congress’s vote-share comes from his support base and that will be enough to get the recognition of the allies. His biggest challenge obviously is to build the new party. Everybody, other than the DMK and the AIADMK, vies for the non-Dravidian space in the state. The PMK, the DMDK and the BJP think that there is certainly a possibility of the non-Dravidian alternative. With the decline of the Congress, the BJP is on a mission to expand this space. Fighting for this opportunity will be a difficult battle for Vasan. Memories of a glorious Kamaraj rule, which the Congress leaders often hark back to, and his popular father alone will not be enough. Does he have it in him to pull off something that he has never done before? Vasan and his supporters can gain some inspiration from the show of support in Chennai where he announced his decision to leave the Congress and form a new party. Thousands of his supporters had gathered at the hotel where he had convened the meeting. The challenge now is to join the rest of the state and behave like a regional party. It will have to obviously target the Congress too.