A year ago, exactly on May 23, Jayalalithaa created history. Unlike her mentor MGR, Jayalalithaa created history by winning a second consecutive term with a single majority by going in alone in the elections without a single alliance party. She was sworn in as the chief minister for a second consecutive term. She chose not just to warm the chief minister's chair but to deliver what she had promised. She signed five files – all welfare schemes – to waive off farmers' debt, provide free 100 units of electricity to domestic consumers, free power for handloom weavers, free gold for marriages and shutting down 500 liquor shops.
However, all her gestures to run a people-friendly welfare government, after Jayalalithaa fell ill, became non-performing. It was a year of woes for the ruling AIADMK since September 22 last year. Tamil Nadu, for the first time, saw three chief ministers in a year, only to make the most popular party with a strong vote base to be split. The ruling party witnessed several turbulent storms after her death, and the government has not delivered as expected. On December 12, a week after her death, cyclone Vardah blew off the city’s greenery. The oil leak along Chennai coast after two ships collided on January 18 contaminated the shores showing the government’s inefficiency in clearing the muck. Then Marina beach was a witness to the fiery protests calling to lift the ban on jallikattu for 15 days, from January 8 to January 23. And then two bills were passed in the state assembly as O. Panneerselvam allowed jallikattu.
But the biggest drama the state witnessed happened on February 8 and 9, when OPS went to meditate at Jayalalithaa’s memorial, and when her close aide V.K. Sasikala was elected as the legislative party leader respectively. On top of this, IT raids were carried out at the Health Minister Dr. C. Vijaya Bhaskar’s house on April 7, and the RK Nagar bypolls were cancelled on April 10.
The state, unlike ever before, had turned into a protest ground. It saw women and children come out and protest against the government-run liquor shops, and transport employees stop buses and demand that the government pay their retirement benefits.
With all these ups and downs following Jayalalithaa’s demise, the new dispensation under Edappadi K. Palanisamy has a tough road ahead. He has several challenges such as wresting control of the party, raising the state’s revenues to overcome the financial woes and mitigate the drought, introducing and passing the GST bill in the assembly, and making people accept the new school curriculum to make students face the challenges in NEET exams among others. For the time being, EPS as he is called, may seem to be sailing in the calm seas.
Reportedly, he has already brought the bureaucracy under his nose with at least a dozen reshuffle in the past three weeks. He had kept the Mannargudi family too at bay without even talking about it and made his cabinet fall in line with him. And he had been tackling the opposition and the rebel OPS camp as well without making any noise.
By showing himself to be more subservient, allowing a union minister to review the central schemes at the secretariat, he had won a reprieve for the time being. The state’s nod for a long-pending Chennai Port-Maduravoyal elevated highway, GST and NEET, which Jayalalithaa opposed tooth and nail, he had cajoled to be in line with the Centre in implementing schemes. But EPS’s challenges are far from over. He has to keep the flock of all the 122 MLAs intact to run the government as there is much rebellion within. A group of eight MLAs have already demanded convening the MLAs meeting.
Also the administrative challenges are huge as the state is facing an unprecedented financial crunch to implement its welfare schemes. As per the budget presented by Finance Minister D. Jayakumar, the state’s revenue deficit stands at Rs 15,930 crore. Though Jayakumar pointed out the slowly picking up economy through his budget in March this year, passing a GST bill and introducing a new tax regime will be an uphill task for the EPS-led government. On the social front, he has to tackle the growing anti-liquor protests and manage the drought situation and the increasing water scarcity in the state. With the local administration in shambles, a smooth conduct of the local body elections is again a challenge.
Beyond all this, politically, he has to appease the ruling BJP at the Centre to get more central funds to manage drought. The state has got only Rs 1,700 crore despite its request for Rs 39,66,000 crore, from the Centre. New policy initiatives, declining sales tax and stamp duty too are the challenges that EPS ought to tackle. Without a charismatic leader like Jayalalithaa at the helm of affairs, both EPS and rebel leader OPS meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi is Tamil Nadu's only reprieve for now.