Sidelined AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran on Thursday launched his new party and called it the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), meaning Amma Peoples’ Development party. His outfit is the newest addition to Tamil Nadu’s landscape of political start-ups. However, unlike other leaders who launched a new outfit, Dhinakaran is no political novice. And now with the new outfit, Dhinakaran aims to carry forward Jayalalithaa’s legacy.
“Retrieving the two leaves symbol and capturing the party is my aim,” Dhinakaran told the crowd he addressed at Melur near Madurai, during the launch of his party on Thursday. His party flag too will have the AIADMK’s tricolour band of red, white and black, with Jayalalithaa’s image in the middle. Jaya’s face replaces that of former chief minister C.N. Annadurai in the original AIADMK flag.
But more than all this, what matters in the party’s name is the word Amma. Already the AIADMK, headed by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, has challenged the Delhi High Court’s order, which allowed Dhinakaran to launch his new party and use ‘cooker’ as its symbol.
Minutes before, Dhinakaran launched his party in Madurai, state Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar, known for taking digs at the former, called him a shani and termed his exit as 'good riddance to the AIADMK'.
But Dhinakaran, more than a Shani, is likely to be a thorn in the flesh for the current AIADMK leaders, as he aims to stake claim to Jayalalithaa’s legacy. Dhinakaran, like in the recent past, is confident of his ability to project himself as the political inheritor of the former chief minister's legacy. In fact, this was his passport to Fort St George, when he won a bypoll from her erstwhile constituency, R.K. Nagar, in December last year.
Dhinakaran is yet another claimant of Jayalalithaa’s legacy like Palanisamy and Panneerselvam. This is because invoking Jaya only can help them lure the cadres. Clearly, Dhinakaran’s party launch happened just minutes before his nemesis, Panneerselvam, was getting ready to present his budget.
Panneerselvam, with a photograph of his mentor Jayalalithaa pasted on the briefcase, was seen walking down to the Assembly hall with Palanisamy. Incidentally, Panneerselvam and Palanisamy refer to their government as ‘Amma’s Government’. Panneerselvam's budget, as always, invoked Jayalalithaa’s name as he hailed her as the eternal leader who would guide him, the government and the party.
But even as he presented his budget, the massive crowd at Madurai, for Dhinakaran’s meeting, gains importance, as Madurai has of late turned to be the route to political power in Chennai.
“Jayakumar might have brushed aside Dhinakaran, calling him a Shani. But this government is just an arrangement between the ruling party MLAs to run the party. The AIADMK will exist under OPS and EPS until they are in power,” tells a AIADMK minister who was also one among the ruling party MLAs worried about Dhinakaran’s rising clout.
But invoking Jayalalithaa’s name and positioning himself as her successor is only a temporary relief to haul up and pull up in the future. Dhinakaran's aim is to capture the AIADMK from Palanisamy and Panneerselvam. Dhinakaran is confident of a takeover, after the Madras HC rules in a case related to the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs who had allied with him. The 18 pro-Dhinakaran MLAs, who alleged corruption charges in a petition to the governor, were disqualified by the speaker last year.
Apparently, there are just two options: if the court upholds the speaker’s ruling and disqualifies the MLAs, the Palanisamy government becomes a minority and he might be pushed to demonstrate his strength through a floor test. Dhinakaran hopes that such a ruling will push the state under President’s rule, as Palanisamy would lose in the floor test. In such a situation, Dhinakaran believes that the rank and file of the party will come with him, which is why he put up a big show in Madurai.
Again, if the court rules in favour of the MLAs, Dhinakaran will head the rebel MLAs in the Assembly, which means the government will move on and he will continue to be a sidelined leader and lead a splinter group.
However in an already politically crowded state, Dhinakaran’s new outfit is yet another party, which can only eat into the AIADMK's vote bank. The AIADMK has a vote share of 35 to 40 per cent and Dhinakaran can consolidate a significant part of this. Again, hailing from the south of Tamil Nadu, which has much of the Thevar vote bank, Dhinakaran could get a wide support base.
With the rise of Dhinakaran, Panneerselvam who also hails from the same caste lines, might lose his clout. On the other hand, Palanisamy enjoys a wide support base in west Tamil Nadu, which predominantly consists of the Gounder community. And if Palanisamy leads the party, Panneerselvam might not be able to hold his clout as the possibility of Palanisamy ceding his political power is next to impossible.
In such a case, after the verdict in the disqualification case, there are likely chances that Dhinakaran could have a better chance at being seen as the inheritor of Jayalalithaa’s legacy. However, his allegiance to Sasikala, or Chinnamma, might still derail Dhinakaran's prospects, given that anger against her has not yet died down.
“He will affect the chances of AIADMK; he will make inroads into the AIADMK votes, which will obviously be advantage DMK. I don’t think his new party will have any big effect in the state,” says senior journalist R. Mani.
However, Dhinakaran’s fate in becoming a future leader and capturing the party remains to be seen, as the two-leaves bribery case and the FERA cases hang over him as a sword of Damocles. His R.K. Nagar victory and the new party launch might prove a damp squib if the two-leaves bribery case takes the legal route. The case could put him in a spot. Unlike how he was seen as a hero, last year—when he was out of Tihar jail and how his charisma grew during the R.K. Nagar poll—this time, the two leaves case might cripple Dhinakaran's political future.