As the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government, led by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, prepares to step into its third year in office in a few days, after a rather smooth sailing since May 2021, it suddenly finds itself under attack. Strangely, the attacks have come not from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the main opposition party in Tamil Nadu which has a substantial presence in the Assembly, but from its minor ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has just four legislators in the Assembly.
BJP State president K. Annamalai, by making one allegation after another against the DMK government, seems to have compensated for his party’s thin presence in the Assembly from outside, at least in the perception war.
First, he released what he dubbed as the “DMK files”, accusing senior DMK leaders of corruption and amassing wealth beyond their means. Such allegations are quite common in politics and expectedly, the DMK leadership brushed them aside and issued legal notice to Mr. Annamalai, demanding crores of rupees as damages. It is another matter that, in the process, Mr. Annamalai made certain jaw-dropping claims about his benevolent friends, footing his monthly expenses running to a whopping ₹7 lakh to ₹8 lakh.
But what embarrassed the ruling party most were the two audio clips, which Mr. Annamalai claimed contained the voice of State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan, in which he “pointed an accusing finger at Youth Welfare and Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin and Chief Minister’s son-in-law, V. Sabareesan”.
Mr. Thiagarajan dismissed the clips as fabricated by a “blackmail gang” to achieve their political ambitions and to disrupt the good governance being delivered by the ruling DMK.
Sharing some deep fake videos on Twitter, in a video statement, Mr. Thiagarajan said, “If such authentic-looking videos can be machine-generated, imagine all that can be done with audio files.”
Amidst speculations that Mr. Thiagarajan might be dropped from the cabinet, or he could volunteer to quit, the Chief Minister broke his silence on the issue saying he was not ready to talk about the audio clippings as the Finance Minister had given an explanation. But what remained unsaid is that the government cannot afford to lose Mr. Thiagarajan for it will amount to admitting the allegations purportedly attributed to him.
It could be the same reason that the BJP and Mr. Annamalai could have chosen to target Mr. Thiagarajan instead of other cabinet members.
Projected as the right man with perfect prescriptions for all the ills afflicting Tamil Nadu finances, Mr. Thiagarajan succeeded in promoting the image of the Tamil Nadu government by roping in world-renowned economists including Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in the Chief Minister’s Economic Advisory Committee. He also suggested measures for filling the coffers of the State with proper management of mines and commercial taxes. He also minced no words in taking on the right wing.
Mr. Thiagarajan, who was the cynosure of the Tamil Nadu cabinet, gradually became controversial, with his social media postings hinting at “discomfort” in continuing in the cabinet. However, he quickly denied them. His efforts at tightening the belt and bringing under the purview of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission departments hitherto conducting their own recruitment were not taken in the right spirit by his own partymen.
He has survived because of Mr. Stalin, who has set his house in order for now. But the Chief Minister will ensure that his family, cabinet colleagues, and partymen, even inadvertently, do not play into the hands of its political enemies, including the BJP, which too is facing accusation of rewarding some functionaries with criminal and dubious antecedents in Tamil Nadu.
The BJP is seeking to present itself as a political force by taking advantage of “the divided house of the AIADMK” and by painting the DMK as a corrupt regime. The DMK needs to be guarded. For vociferous claims on Dravidian ideology, the Dravidian model of government and development, and inclusive growth do not mean that the DMK can rest on its laurels.
kolappan.b@thehindu.co.in
