Alagiri's rally plan unnerves Stalin camp

M K Stalin, the newly-elected president of the DMK, is facing a major political threat, not from the party’s eternal enemies, the AIADMK, but from his own brother MK Alagiri. A rally to be held by Alagiri on Wednesday at Chennai in memory of the late M Karunanidhi, former president of the party and five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who breathed his last on August 7, has rattled Stalin and his close associates, if the signals coming out of the party head-quarters are any indication.

Alagiri, the Madurai-based elder son of Karunanidhi was never a favourite of the pro-Stalin media in Tamil Nadu. The former has been conveniently kept aside of the mainstream media during the life time of late Karunanidhi.  Alagiri  had been expelled from the party in early 2014 by the then chief Karunanidhi at the instance of Stalin. The elder son, who was  sidelined  by the Stalin-dominated party leadership since the 2011 Assembly election struck silently which resulted in the DMK losing all the elections since then.

“I don’t want any position in the party. All I want is that the leadership should reinstate me and my followers into the party. I have never told that I would not accept Stalin as party president,” Alagiri had been telling the media since the demise of Karunanidhi.

On Monday he told journalists at Chennai that 1,00,000 party workers would join him in Wednesday’s rally. P M Mannan, a close associate of Alagiri , had declared at Madurai last month that Anjanenjan (Tamil for Brave Heart , as Alagiri is addressed by cadre) would hold a rally in which 50,000 followers will take part. The figures have gone up to 1,00,000 by the time Alagiri reached Chennai from Madurai on Monday morning. Alagiri in his social media postings as well as in interviews to some of the news channels has been alleging that Stalin does not want to re-induct him into the party.

The build up to the rally has seen a steady build up with Alagiri’s Sunday declaration; “I am the son of Karunanidhi and I will do what I say,” a dialogue in synch with a character portrayed in a movie by his friend Rajinikanth.   

Political commentators who had said that Alagiri's rumblings since Karunanidhi's death have not created any fears of the party splitting  or Alagiri’s irrational impulse lost out to Stalin’s studied patience may have to swallow their words if the Wednesday event turns out to be a success. Past records show that the DMK could ignore Alagiri at it’s own peril because the grumbling Madurai strongmen had always derailed the party’s electoral prospects.

Though most of the national leaders who attended the memorial meeting held at Chennai last week in honour of Karunnidhi  eulogised Stalin as their potential leader to take on Prime Minister Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the DMK is yet to be enthused of it because of the first hurdle in the new president’s path.