Can Stalin fill the void created in Tamil Nadu after Jayalalithaa's demise?

It used to be a running joke in Tamil Nadu that Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin was secretary of the youth wing of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) till very recently.

Even by the fairly liberal definition of a "young politician" in the Indian context, he is not one — he turned 64 on March 1. He finally gave up the post in January, after holding it for 33 years. That had to do with a significant development two days earlier: he was appointed working president of the party owing to the illness of his father and party president M Karunanidhi.

This was yet another crucial step in the protracted process of his anointment as Karunanidhi's political heir. Karunanidhi himself had alluded to that in the past, most recently in October, when then chief minister J Jayalalithaa was in hospital (she passed away on December 5).

The question that was repeatedly asked over the past decade or so becomes more relevant in the political vacuum left by the two bitter foes: will Stalin finally emerge as a leader in his own right, out of his father's looming shadow? His first test will be the April 12 byelection to Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly constituency in Chennai, which was represented by Jayalalithaa

The Political Melee
"He may not be the right person to fill the vacuum, but there is no one else. There is no reason to hate him and there is no reason to love him," says Maalan V Narayanan, a senior journalist. "He has the party in his grip; Karunanidhi may remain just a figurehead." Political pundits have been proven wrong in the past. Karunanidhi, 92, has been reluctant to step aside for his son, but this time might be different.

Moreover, Stalin's temperamental brother MK Alagiri, who was once a claimant to the throne, was sidelined a few years ago and their half-sister Kanimozhi, who was put behind bars in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, was never a serious contender. TKS Elangovan, DMK spokesperson and member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, says the party has accepted Stalin as Karunanidhi's successor.


Though Karunanidhi was the DMK's chief ministerial candidate in the 2016 assembly election, Stalin spearheaded the campaign. It was believed that if the party won, Stalin, called thalapathy (commander) by his supporters, would be made chief minister after a year or two. But the DMK lost the election, the first time since 1989 when anti-incumbency was not strong enough to throw out a government in Tamil Nadu.

It was a big blow to Stalin's credentials as a mass leader. He had visited all 234 constituencies, trading his veshti for trousers, as he interacted with students. While the DMK and even the media made a big deal of it, it did not yield the desired results in the polls, as Jayalalithaa's All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) won 134 seats, a comfortable majority.

While the DMK emerged as a stronger opposition than before, with 89 members of the legislative assembly (MLAs), more than three times its strength in the previous term, the results were a huge setback for the party and its allies, including the Congress.

Jayalalithaa's popularity showed little signs of waning, but after her death, the AIADMK is racked by internal strife. Her longtime aide VK Sasikala, who is now general secretary of the party, pushed out interim chief minister O Panneerselvam, forcing him to break away from the party with some other leaders. She wanted to be chief minister but the judiciary had other plans.

She was sentenced by the Supreme Court to a four-year jail term in a disproportionate assets case and disbarred from electoral politics for 10 years. Sasikala, who accused Panneerselvam of being in cahoots with the DMK, made Edappadi K Palaniswami chief minister.

Panneerselvam claimed that he had the backing of most of the AIADMK MLAs, but Palaniswami proved his majority with 122 votes after some unsavoury scenes in the assembly, with the DMK MLAs, who demanded a secret vote, being evicted. Stalin came out of the assembly with his shirt undone, claiming it had been torn in the melee.

Historian and political commentator AR Venkatachalapathy says Stalin, who is leader of the opposition, bungled the trust vote, and the party's lawmakers were seen to be indulging in violence in the assembly.

Elangovan says the DMK could not have done anything to deny Palaniswami a win. "Panneerselvam claimed he had the majority, but he didn't." Narayanan says Stalin's drama did not win him any favours among educated people.

Stalin has challenged the trust vote in the Madras High Court; he did not respond to an interview request from ET Magazine.

Opportune Moment
Outside the assembly, Stalin has made all the right noises about issues like the Neduvasal hydrocarbon project and the killing of a Tamil fisherman by Sri Lankan forces. He attended the protests at Neduvasal in southeastern Tamil Nadu, and after the fisherman's death, wrote to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, asking her to retrieve Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island crucial for fishing, from Sri Lanka; India had ceded it to Sri Lanka in the 1970s.

Writer Vaasanthi believes this is the best time for Stalin to engage with the public on issues. "People are against Sasikala and even those who are against Karunanidhi are supportive of him. Among the politicians in Tamil Nadu today, he is the most sober and statesman-like."

But that may not necessarily work to his advantage. "He has the ambition but not the killer instinct," says Venkatachalapathy.

Narayanan believes Stalin is a gentleman politician who "always reacts to something, is never proactive". Avadi Kumar, spokesperson of the AIADMK, says the fact that the jallikattu protests in Chennai and the Neduvasal campaign were leaderless movements point to the failings of Stalin as an opposition leader who does not know the pulse of the people.

Former Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who is a Lok Sabha MP from the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), calls Stalin a "media creation". Ramadoss has been positioning his party as an alternative to the two Dravidian parties and was PMK's chief ministerial candidate in 2016, but the party did not win a single seat.

Comparisons with his father are inevitable for Stalin and it is often noted that he is not the orator his father was in his prime, using rhetoric and his command over Tamil to promote the Dravidian cause.

But Vaasanthi does not see it as a handicap. "Times are different. Stalin realises that people no longer care about the Dravidian ideology." This month marks 50 years of Dravidian rule in Tamil Nadu. The DMK defeated the Congress in the 1967 election and its founder CN Annadurai became chief minister. Two years later, after his death, Karunanidhi succeeded him.

The DMK was born out of EV Ramasamy's Self-respect Movement, which was against Brahminism and called for equal rights for all castes and promoted rational thinking.

The AIADMK was formed in 1972 by popular actor MG Ramachandran after he fell out with Karunanidhi. Within months of its formation, the AIADMK defeated the DMK in the parliamentary by-election in Dindigul constituency in 1973, a harbinger of the new party's future dominance in Tamil Nadu.

Ramachandran became chief minister in 1977 and remained so till his death in 1987. Some are comparing the upcoming byelection to the one in Dindigul. Stalin has appealed to the rest of the opposition to back the DMK's candidate, but this is bound to be a multi-cornered fight, with DMK's N Marudhuganesh taking on TTV Dinakaran, AIADMK's deputy general secretary and Sasikala's nephew, Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa Jayakumar, and E Madhusudhanan from the Panneerselvam faction, among others.

But neither Dinakaran nor Madhusudhanan will be able to fight on the AIADMK's two leaves symbol, according to an Election Commission ruling after both camps claimed it. Stalin has said this will benefit the DMK.

It is important for Stalin that the DMK win this election and capitalise on the anger among the AIADMK cadre against Sasikala, who is seen to have indulged in a blatant power grab soon after Jayalalithaa's passing. Panneerselvam, about whom most people did not have an opinion when Jayalalithaa was around, is now portraying himself as the wronged one who is fighting to protect her legacy.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been struggling for years to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu, is also closely monitoring the political situation to make the best of it.

Ramadoss sees the possibility of a midterm election, most likely along with the general election in 2019 and says his party is preparing for it. "We are willing to join hands with any party other than the DMK or AIADMK. People are yearning for an alternative to both parties."

Observers believe now is an opportune moment for Stalin to make his mark on Tamil Nadu politics. He may have emerged victorious in the succession battle within his party but the electoral arena is a different beast. He may be a seasoned legislator, with experience as Chennai mayor and deputy chief minister to boot, but leading his party to victory in an election is a tough ask, as his father will tell him.

While Stalin may not have measured up to Jayalalithaa in popularity or charisma when she was alive, he is in a better position now, although what he makes of it is anybody's guess.