A few weeks ago, when DMK president M.K. Stalin held a vel (spear) in his hand and posed for photos during a grama sabha meeting in Thirthani, his political rivals— the AIADMK and the BJP—took him head on. They described it as a deliberate attempt to erase the “anti-Hindu” tag of the DMK and win Hindu votes in the the upcoming assembly elections.
“Stalin ridiculed me for carrying out the vel yatra. But now, Lord Murugan has pushed him to such a position that he had to hold a vel in his hand,” BJP state president L. Murugan said. Indeed, the relentless pursuit of the BJP and the Hindutva forces to gain entry into the state appears to have pushed the 60-year old Dravidian party, the DMK, to adopt the soft Hindutva tone, without missing out on its social justice plank.
A party, which always recalls C.N. Annadurai’s dictum of ‘Onre Kulam Oruvane Devan’ (one race, one god), has now promised to provide an allowance of Rs. 25,000 each to one lakh people who go on pilgrimage to Rameshwaram, Kasi, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Thirupathi and Puri Jagannath. The manifesto also promised to allocate Rs 1,000 crore for temples in the state to conduct their traditional festivals and carry out renovation works. It has also promised to focus on temple infrastructure, including providing cable car facilities to temples located atop hills. The manifesto promised to increase the monthly allowance and pension for the priests' welfare board, besides making the jobs of temple staff permanent.
DMK’s promises and actions, like the vel in Stalin’s hand, raises the question if this is an attempt to counter BJP’s attack on the Dravidian party and shun the anti-Hindu tag attached to the DMK. Incidentally, all this began when the Karuppar Koottam and the Kandha Sashti Kavasam issues were blown out of proportion by the BJP by filing a number of police complaints. However, the DMK distanced itself from the Karuppar Koottam issue, but that did not help the party shun the anti-Hindu image, deliberately painted on it by the BJP.
Weeks later, with the party manifesto, the DMK too seems to have joined the bandwagon of AAP in Delhi and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC in West Bengal who trod the soft Hindutva line to take on the BJP. AAP’s Arvind Kejrival had chanted Hanumanth Chalisa during his campaigns, while Mamata has begun chanting 'Jai Shree Ram'.