Nearly 45 years after M.G. Ramachandran formed the AIADMK and 30 years after his death, the former Chief Minister continues to remain an important reference point in any political discourse in the State.
In recent months, the MGR factor has been felt more in the context of veteran film stars Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth announcing their intentions to take the plunge into politics.
Those who argue in favour of their proposed entry cite MGR’s success in politics and wonder why the two stars would not be able to repeat what was achieved in the 1970s and the 1980s. Besides, in the last one year, the talk of the State being in the midst of a vacuum in political leadership has only grown louder. However, C. Ponnaiyan, one of the founder-members of the AIADMK, says MGR’s success in politics was a complex matter. Through films, he had assiduously cultivated the image of a man who shunned smoking and drinking. He also had the reputation of going to the rescue of the poor. For nearly 20 years, he had carried out a number of assignments while being in the DMK before establishing the AIADMK in 1972. Besides, DMK’s founder and former Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai had told a group of his supporters who included himself (Mr. Ponnaiyan) that MGR had played a substantial role in the DMK’s victory in the 1967 Assembly elections. “You do not find any such facet in the career of the two film stars,” he adds.
R. Thangathurai, a long time observer of the AIADMK, says MGR’s decision to position himself within the “fold of Dravidian politics” was a key factor in the success.
