The general council of the AIADMK, Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, has sacked V.K. Sasikala as the party’s “interim” general secretary and her nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran as deputy general secretary. The moves by chief minister E. Palaniswami and his deputy O. Panneerselvam indicate their control over a sizeable majority of the party founded by M.G. Ramachandran and nurtured by his political successor J. Jayalalithaa. To remove a corruption-tainted person serving jail time is a principled stand. Tamil Nadu’s politics now moves to a higher plane as the government, noticeably short of a majority in the Assembly, risks being brought down by a disaffected Mr Dhinakaran, seen to command the loyalty of a set of MLAs now sequestered at a Karnataka resort.
Sasikala, who picked up a claim to fame for backroom manoeuvring, became the party’s self-appointed leader on her benefactor Jayalalithaa’s death. Her bid to take over the reins of government, however, came a cropper after her conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, which also prevents her holding public office for 10 years. For a major party to be beholden to a jailed person would be a travesty of all democratic principles. By the same token, her haste to pass on her powers to her nephew — also under the scanner for dubious foreign exchange dealings — was ethically questionable too. That the EPS-OPS combine is ready to lose power in the event of Dhinakaran bringing down the government with his rebel MLAs adds legitimacy to their action, even if their motivation arose from the political compulsions of having to assert their authority and hold on the party.
To keep Sasikala and her clan out of party and government affairs is a desirable objective as they are essentially political squatters with little hope of enjoying the people’s mandate that MGR and Jaya commanded. As extra-constitutional authorities, such elements are dangerous aberrations. As an industrialised state with a past reputation for good governance, Tamil Nadu is at the political crossroads. While it’s true that the majority any government has is best tested on the Assembly floor, the Sasikala clan’s intra-party manipulations is what is keeping the AIADMK government on tenterhooks. A united AIADMK under OPS as steering committee chairman and EPS as his deputy would have a legitimate claim to the “Two Leaves” symbol on which the party’s fortunes have rested when going to the people. How they steer the ship from here through the shoals of legislative uncertainty is going to be the key to the survival of the EPS government. In taking the family out of the equation with regard to party control, they have given clean politics a chance in a country where corruption and conviction hardly seem to matter when it comes to seeking high public office.
