Tamil Nadu: A vote against corruption

Jayalalitha’s challenge lies in taking ahead the development and welfare schemes of DMK government with corruption-free administration.

New Delhi:

J Jayalalitha’s landslide victory in Tamil Nadu assembly election should be mainly attributed to a major scheme of her rival DMK government.

During his tenure DMK patron Karunanidhi made sure that every household in the state possesses a television set. The ‘idiot box’ was given free of cost to the families in the slums, dalit-colonies and tribal-belts, including the ones who didn’t even have electricity connection at their house.

Now the same TVs spread the news of 2G scam from village to village in the state- the picture of DMK minister A Raja being dragged to jail and Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi being forced to courts.

Until the 2G scam erupted, Jayalalitha and her party AIADMK had never had the prospect of even giving a good fight in the election. The only question heard in the Tamil Nadu politics was about who will be the successor of Karunanidhi- whether anna (elder brother) Azhagiri or thambi (younger brother) Stalin?

With new industries, high-ways and beautifications (Beautiful Chennai- a project worth crores), Tamil Nadu was shining under the DMK rule. A clamouring rural Tamil Nadu was put into silence with freebies of free TVs, free bicycles, rupees-one-a-kg-rice etc. The state had become second in the raw of states with the maximum number of SEZs in the country. The kind of development brought by the DMK government in the state was unprecedented. The opening of a new state-of-the-art assembly complex and the grand Tamil Conference had instilled pride and hope in the minds of average Tamilians.

But, with 2G, Tamil Nadu was awakened into something which they had realized before but never tried to put in momentum- the autocracy of the first family. The youth and the first-time voters, who are believed to have contributed largely to the unprecedented poll percentage in the election this time, took the ire forward and reduced the DMK and its allies to a mere share of 31 seats while shouldering AIADMK and allies with 203 seats. DMK couldn’t even score the number of seats achieved by 2006 formed DMDK, led by actor Vijayakant.

Jayalalitha, however, is not seen as corrupt-free. But, given the scale of DMK’s corruption, she is seen as less-dangerous at this moment. Her life being a single woman might have had a psychological impact among the voters to assert this point. Her challenge, therefore, lies in taking ahead the development and welfare schemes of the DMK government with corruption-free administration.