akrishnarao

Tag: TAMILNADU

  • Tamil Nadu’s Message to India’s Political Class

    Man standing on a car waving to crowd with supporters holding flags in a night rally
    Supporters cheer enthusiastically around a leader standing on a car during a lively political rally at night.

    In Andhra Pradesh, there was a political leader who used to send various kinds of gifts door to door in his constituency. On every occasion, he distributed sweets and snacks; during festivals, Raymond clothes for men and silk sarees for women. Every newly married couple received a gold mangalsutra pendant, silk clothes, and silver anklets as gifts. During elections, things went even further. Reports said that a separate truck was used exclusively for distributing cash lavishly. Even then, he lost the last election by a margin of more than 43,000 votes.

    This single example is enough to show that if people truly decide, no amount of inducement can make them surrender their conscience. Even though political parties and leaders are aware of this, they continue making every possible attempt to lure people and buy votes. This does nothing except create disgust among the public toward political leaders. When leaders try to purchase votes, people naturally begin to wonder how much these politicians are earning in politics and how much public money they are looting. Many people feel that all this money being distributed is nothing but wealth stolen from the public itself.

    Recently in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and AIADMK distributed money on a massive scale. Estimates suggest that between ₹20 crore and ₹50 crore was spent in each constituency. Videos showing these parties distributing cash in envelopes ranging from ₹3,000 to ₹10,000 circulated widely on social media, yet the Election Commission hardly paid attention. An NGO called “Arappor Iyakkam” even lodged a complaint with the Election Commission regarding the large-scale cash distribution. Surprisingly, the TVK party of actor Vijay, which reportedly did not distribute money at all, succeeded in getting the highest number of its candidates elected. Along with Chief Minister Stalin, 15 DMK ministers were defeated. In one constituency, a four-time DMK minister lost to an auto driver. Elsewhere, the son of a car driver won. In many constituencies, TVK candidates won with huge majorities, while in at least 20 seats they lost by extremely narrow margins. These developments prove that if elections had been conducted without the influence of money power, a massive Vijay wave would likely have swept Tamil Nadu.

    In recent democratic history, Vijay earned the distinction of winning elections in a state without purchasing votes from people. In fact, Vijay did not campaign extensively across the state. In many places, his party relied on cutouts, holograms, and duplicates for campaigning. Keeping in mind the stampede incident at Karur, he cancelled many rallies. TVK candidates themselves did not campaign aggressively in several constituencies. There were even reports that in some places DMK and AIADMK candidates offered money to TVK candidates and told them to stay home and rest. In many constituencies, TVK candidates did not even go to the counting centres. They were surprised to learn from television broadcasts that they had won.

    Although huge crowds attended Vijay’s meetings, many believed TVK could not succeed because the party lacked organizational machinery, proper local coordination, sufficient funds, and experienced candidates. In many constituencies, campaigns were carried out with nothing more than a small van, two auto-rickshaws, and a few children blowing whistles while walking ahead of the candidates. In several places, students and women voluntarily went door to door campaigning. Small donations were collected for campaign expenses. In some constituencies, there were not even TVK posters. Often, people could not even recognize TVK candidates when they walked on the roads.

    The Tamil Nadu elections should serve as a lesson to parties that rely on money power, muscle power, and manipulation of systems to come to power. It should open the eyes of those who collect funds from corporate companies in the name of electoral bonds, allot Rajya Sabha seats to donors, and even launch companies for them. Illegal funding from corporations forces governments to return favors through project allocations, ignore irregularities in those projects, and encourages politicians who buy votes to indulge in further corruption to recover their election expenses. Through such corrupt practices, entire systems have become rotten. Electoral corruption plays a major role in India’s political and administrative system. Legislatures are increasingly filled with corrupt individuals, corporates, and wealthy elites. Ordinary people are finding it impossible to contest elections. There is little doubt that black money amounting to 20–50 percent of the country’s GDP has become part of the electoral system.

    Officially, the Election Commission says that an MP candidate can spend up to ₹95 lakh and an MLA candidate up to ₹28 lakh. But politicians themselves say that in reality, this amount is not sufficient even for a single day of campaigning. Although the Election Commission officially seized black money worth ₹10,000 crore during the 2024 general elections, estimates suggest that around ₹1.35 lakh crore actually circulated during the elections—far exceeding the expenditure in the 2020 U.S. elections. The Centre for Media Studies had earlier estimated that an average of ₹1,500 is paid as bribes to every voter in the country. It would not be an exaggeration to say that election observers appointed by the Election Commission have become clowns in this entire drama. Instead of preventing electoral malpractice, they appear more focused on deciding which party should win.

    It appears that the people of Tamil Nadu responded against this vicious cycle of corruption and illegality. Out of the 107 MLAs elected from Vijay’s party, 93 were first-time entrants into politics. Half of them were between 40 and 45 years old. This helps explain the direction in which Tamil Nadu’s youth and Dalits are thinking. It also suggests that they are no longer interested in hollow identity slogans and ideological rhetoric. What they really want is simple: systems that function properly. They want efficient public services in return for the taxes they pay. They want government offices—especially revenue departments—to function properly, without power cuts and delays. Instead of political parties constantly raising emotional slogans and provoking caste, religious, or regional divisions to divert public attention, the country can become modern and ideal only when systems are reformed according to the aspirations of the youth.

    Although India ranks 91st among 182 countries in the corruption index, no government appears to be sincerely working to eliminate corruption within systems. Political parties focused solely on winning elections show little interest in institutional reforms. A recent example is the NEET question paper leak scandal. Over the last four years, question paper leaks have occurred in one form or another. Reports stated that question papers for the May 3 entrance examination were sold under the guise of “guess papers” for amounts ranging from ₹10 lakh to ₹25 lakh, and that a mafia network stretching from Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand to Kerala was responsible for the leak.

    Even after it was discovered last year that students who selected the same examination centre in Godhra, Gujarat scored unusually high marks, the examinations were not fully cancelled. Although a committee headed by former ISRO chairman Radhakrishnan was appointed to investigate the 2024 irregularities, its report merely gathered dust and was never implemented. Even after the CBI investigated 144 people who had purchased leaked question papers and submitted its findings to the Supreme Court, the Court concluded that there was no evidence of a nationwide systemic failure.

    Medical education in India costs crores of rupees. Affordable medical colleges are very few. This is one of the reasons behind examination paper leaks. What is the use of leaders delivering moral sermons when they cannot make education and healthcare accessible to ordinary citizens? After all, are these not the very sectors where people could save the most money?

    Meaningful change will not come unless the kind of political awareness shown by the generation that voted for Vijay in Tamil Nadu spreads across the country. Only when a new political consciousness emerges among the youth nationwide, as seen in Tamil Nadu, can real transformation become possible.

  • BJP’s Southern Challenge: Can the Saffron Wave Cross the Vindhyas?

    Crowd of BJP supporters holding Indian flags and BJP lotus flags at a political rally with party leaders on stage

    When will the BJP’s triumphant march reach the South?

    For several decades, red waves used to surge every year at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground. But on May 9 this year, saffron waves swept across it instead. In the presence of Prime Minister Modi and thousands of people, Suvendu Adhikari took oath as the BJP’s first Chief Minister in West Bengal. Exactly a day later, on Sunday, in Chennai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, film actor Chandrasekaran Joseph Vijay took oath as the 9th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in the presence of national opposition leader Rahul Gandhi. Vijay’s coronation too witnessed an equally massive public turnout. This development clearly indicates that while the Bharatiya Janata Party has firmly rooted itself in Hindi-speaking states, expanded in western states like Gujarat and Maharashtra, in northeastern states such as Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura, and in the eastern coastal region first through Odisha and now Bengal, entering the South is not going to be easy. On one side stands Suvendu Adhikari, and on the other Joseph Vijay — both appearing as reflections of these changing political realities. Do these two events represent two distinct dimensions in the thinking of the Indian people?

    While Narendra Modi, standing beside Suvendu Adhikari in Bengal, is now eager to expand into the South, Rahul Gandhi, who stood beside Joseph Vijay after achieving success in Kerala, has been unable to regain lost ground in North India despite repeated efforts. The southern states that once resisted Congress have not particularly welcomed the BJP either. In Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, there has been no experiment or attempt left untried by the BJP to gain entry.

    In Andhra Pradesh, the BJP accepted the dominance of the Telugu Desam Party. In Karnataka, after losing power, it is making every possible effort to regain it. In Tamil Nadu, after realizing that strengthening independently is difficult, it had no choice but to once again ally with the AIADMK. In Kerala, although the BJP won 3 seats for the first time in this Assembly election, its vote share did not increase significantly compared to the past. If Kerala and Tamil Nadu remain distant dreams for the BJP, the only promising states appear to be Karnataka and Telangana. That is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi toured these two states immediately after the results of the five-state elections were announced. However, his tours in Karnataka and Telangana were markedly different. In Karnataka, Modi declared that people were inclining towards nationalist politics and that a saffron wave would soon sweep the state. But in Telangana, he did not express the same confidence.

    In 1984, among the only two seats won by the BJP nationwide, one was Mehsana in Gujarat and the other was Hanamkonda in Telangana. Today, while the BJP has come to power in many states including Gujarat, it has still not expanded in Telangana to the extent expected. Modi himself reportedly mentioned this to state leaders and criticized them. During Bandi Sanjay’s tenure as state president, some enthusiasm had developed within the BJP cadre, but later that momentum gradually faded. The Sangh Parivar organizations may be able to steer people toward Hindutva ideologically, but it is BJP leaders who must create political momentum among the people. During Modi’s latest visit, he did not publicly provide any direct guidance to BJP leaders. He knows that the strategies adopted in North India and Bengal may not work in the South. However, his words and meetings regarding Telangana suggest that he may have some strategy in mind. Time alone will reveal what it is.

    With the BJP’s victory in Bengal, it appears that after Mamata Banerjee, every force capable of challenging the saffron party is gradually disappearing. At the same time, questions are arising whether even the national party Congress is capable of taking on the BJP. Leaders who tried to unite opposition parties against the BJP have all collapsed one by one. Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, M.K. Stalin, KCR, Sharad Pawar, Kejriwal, and Uddhav Thackeray all once sought to unite the opposition against Modi. Nitish Kumar, who made intense efforts in 2023 to unify the opposition, later shifted towards the BJP for power and has now effectively handed over power to the BJP itself. Modi used every possible political strategy to sideline leaders capable of offering alternative politics nationally. None of them are now in a position to challenge Modi at the national level; instead, they are struggling for survival at the state level. In Maharashtra, after splitting the Shiv Sena and NCP to establish dominance, the BJP also encouraged rebellion within the Aam Aadmi Party. Although a new force has emerged in Tamil Nadu, it is too early to determine how much strength it can gather before the Lok Sabha elections. The Left parties’ only government is now under Congress influence. The Left’s presence in Parliament is also steadily declining.

    As regional parties and Left parties weaken, a situation is emerging where Congress alone must face the BJP. Perhaps the BJP desires exactly that. Anti-BJP politics appears to be either weakening or losing relevance altogether. This is evident both at the leadership level and at the ideological level. Consequently, even in the South, parties are no longer hesitant to join hands with the BJP or accept its political ideology. It is difficult to say how long it will take for anti-BJP sentiment to spread beyond the “paper tigers” of social media into the broader public.

    Congress ruled the country for decades after Independence, but gradually weakened over time. The condition Congress finds itself in today resembles the condition the Jana Sangh and later the BJP once faced. Within just two years, the BJP managed to come to power in Odisha, Bihar, and West Bengal in the East. It secured power for a third consecutive term in Assam. In the West, BJP has its own Chief Ministers in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. In Gujarat, it has been in power continuously for 30 years. Except for Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh, BJP Chief Ministers govern almost the entire Hindi belt. Even in Punjab, the BJP has already begun plans to gradually establish itself. If the BJP could establish dominance in the North, East, and West, is entering the South truly impossible?

    However, in electoral politics, the BJP has become so strategically sophisticated that defeating the party now seems nearly impossible. No one has been able to crack the BJP’s winning formula in elections. The BJP leaves no instrument unused in its pursuit of victory; whether those methods are ethical or unethical is irrelevant to the party. Since Trinamool Congress leaders themselves admitted that the BJP won 31 seats because of “Sir,” it is likely that the BJP deployed additional strategies to win the remaining seats.

    No political party can remain at its peak forever. If the BJP is to lose that position, it must become the cause of its own downfall. An alternative political force capable of dethroning the BJP must emerge. Conditions must arise where people begin resisting the party at every step. None of these three possibilities seem likely in the near future. Ordinarily, anti-incumbency sentiment against governments becomes visible, but the BJP has managed to overcome even that. BJP leaders are experts at neutralizing anti-government sentiment. In Assam, despite ruling twice, not only did Congress fail to defeat the BJP, but even Gaurav Gogoi — a three-time MP and Congress’s Chief Ministerial face — lost by a margin of 23,000 votes. What more needs to be said?

    It is impossible to predict how much strength the opposition can build before the 2029 general elections to challenge the BJP. It is uncertain how many parties will align nationally with a Congress that defeated the Left in Kerala while simultaneously trying to weaken Trinamool in Bengal with Left support. Even if all opposition parties unite again, creating an ideological foundation and leadership capable of defeating the BJP will not be easy. Leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan and V.P. Singh are unlikely to emerge again. In reality, many votes now won by regional parties once belonged to Congress. If regional parties weaken, Congress should theoretically regain those votes. But Congress has not been able to rebuild that strength. In Hindutva politics, the BJP has no competition. Organizationally too, Congress cannot match the BJP. Congress has failed to inspire confidence that it can defeat the BJP in a direct contest. What message will the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Telangana, and other states over the next two years deliver? Will Karnataka and Telangana preserve their distinctiveness like Tamil Nadu? Only time will tell.