PMK switches sides, again

WHEN the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to join the front led by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in February 2001 during the run-up to the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, wags in Chennai said that the PMK would do an about-turn once the elections were over. The joke has more or less come true. On July 7, PMK founder Dr. S. Ramadoss announced that "we have permanently broken our ties with the AIADMK" because of the "humiliation" he suffered at the hands of AIADMK general secretary and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa since she assumed power in May.

Ramadoss alleged that Jayalalithaa had backed down on her promise to nominate his son Dr. R. Anbumani to the Rajya Sabha. (Biennial elections to the Upper House from the State are to be held on July 23.) He was also hurt that Jayalalithaa ignored him although he had worked hard to ensure her victory and the defeat of the NDA led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Ramadoss also alleged that Jayalalithaa upset the PMK's chances in the elections to the Pondicherry Assembly by forging a secret pact with the Congress(I) and the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). The Congress-TMC combine returned to power in the Union Territory.

Jayalalithaa denied having promised the PMK a Rajya Sabha nomination. Her version: "During the Assembly elections, Dr. Ramadoss never asked for a seat for his party in the Rajya Sabha. I also did not promise to give him a seat."

Ramadoss, who pulled out two PMK Ministers from the Union Council of Ministers before he joined the AIADMK-led front, seems keen on getting his party back into the NDA government. While NDA convener George Fernandes has expressed his "personal opinion" that there is nothing wrong in re-admitting the PMK, the BJP's national president Jana Krishnamurthy and State general secretary L. Ganesan are opposed to the idea. Jana Krishnamurthy observed that the NDA was not a passenger train for people to get in and get out as and when they liked. Ganesan said it was "not proper" to re-admit the PMK as it would not add prestige either to the NDA or to the PMK.

Dalit Panthers convener R. Tirumavalavan has welcomed this position. If the PMK is re-admitted, the Dalit Panthers might walk out of the NDA as there is a history of animosity between the two parties. While the PMK essentially represents the interests of the Vanniyar community, a caste Hindu group, the Dalit Panthers is a Dalit party. The Dalit Panthers walked out of the AIADMK-led alliance when the PMK joined it.

Avoiding a direct reply, DMK president and former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said that the party would elicit Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's stand on the issue of re-admitting the PMK. The DMK executive council would take a decision on the basis of that, he said. Karunanidhi would not like to forget in a hurry how the PMK walked out of the NDA and ruined the DMK's chances of returning to power. Local body elections in the State are slated for October and that might prove to be the bottomline. Although these elections are held on a non-party basis, the DMK would be happy to tap the PMK votebank.

The AIADMK-PMK estrangement began on May 14 when Jayalalithaa was sworn in Chief Minister. Ramadoss alleged that he was invited to the function just an hour before it was to begin. He did not attend the swearing-in ceremony. Later, when he sought a meeting with Jayalalithaa, he was made to wait for four days before he got an appointment, he said. And the meeting lasted only five minutes. Now she had backed out on her promise to make Anbumani a Rajya Sabha member, Ramadoss complained.

The rift, however, became evident on June 9 when he praised Karuananidhi for his offer of 25 Assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats to the PMK in the 1996 elections. He regretted that the PMK did not accept the offer. On July 3, he called on Karunanidhi at the Central Prison in Chennai, where he was kept after the post-midnight arrest on June 30. Ramadoss issued a statement describing the "flyover scam case", the case relating to which Karunanidhi was arrested, as a frame-up.