Karunanidhi- target of the pro- Eelam groups

The plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils in the Vanni, will become the main campaign issue in the May 13 Parliamentary election in Tamil Nadu, observers say.  Pazha Nedumaran of the Tamizhar Desiya Iyakkam, who will head a group of Pro-Eelam organisations, said the campaign will be directed against the DMK and the Congress, and their governments in Chennai and Delhi.
Dr. S. Ramadoss, who switched over from DMK group to the opposing ADMK group last week, has singled out DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi as their target. “Karunanidhi has betrayed the trust the Tamil people had placed in him,” he charged.
Nedumaran told the inaugural meeting of the 1100-strong organisation held in Trichy on Saturday, “Karunanidhi was enacting dramas to deceive the Tamil people.” Ramadoss added, “His talk of resignation was part of his play acting. If he was serious about resignation, then he should have forwarded those letters to the Speaker of Parliament. He kept them with him and wriggled out of the problem, by saying that the members of Parliament of other parties have not honoured their pledge to resign.”
The new group includes many Karunanidhi supporters, mainly the followers of Ramasamy Periyar.  The Progressive Organisation of writers, artists and students has also joined. Their mode of protest includes posters, banners, election meetings and house to house campaigns. Their slogan is ‘Defeat the DMK and the Congress’.
Lankan Diaspora
The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora too has started a campaign against Karunanidhi. They are using their web sites and publications to expose the, ‘game Karunanidhi played on the Tamil people.” They also target Karunanidhi as selfish, and interested only in amassing wealth and influence for his family. They have dug up his past and published his family tree.
The names of the DMK candidates Karunanidhi announced on Sunday, lend credibility to this accusation. It includes his son M.K. Alagiri and his nephew Thayanithi Maran.  His family and Maran’s family, which were estranged for some months, shook hands on Sunday and made up their differences. The feud with Thayanithi Maran was the result of his family newspaper criticising Karunanidhi’s son Alagiri. Maran who at that time held an influential ministerial post in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, was sacked from the party and asked to resign from his cabinet post.
Contest
The contest on May 13, will be mainly between the groups, Karunanidhi-led DMK and Jayalalitha led ADMK. Opinion polls show that the fight will be close. DMK which will contest 21 seats, has forged a partnership with Congress (16 seats). Thol. Thirmavalavan’s Viduthalai Chiruthaigal (2 seats) and Indian Union Muslim League (One seat). Tamil Nadu has 39 seats and Puthucheri one seat.
ADMK group announced its sharing of seats on Thursday. ADMK will contest 23 seats, Dr. S. Ramadoss’ Pattali Makkal Kadchchi (PMK) seven seats. Vaiko’s MDMK four seats, Indian Communist Party one seat, and Marxist Communist Party three seats. Two seats remain to be decided. Jayalalithaa had promised PMK one Rajya Sabha seat.
Jayalalithaa’s decision to accommodate Dr. Ramadoss’s demand, had jolted the political circles but not the political analysts, who consider it as a masterly political move. Karunanidhi’s confidence in withstanding the challenge by the pro- Eelam groups, stemmed from the belief that he could neutralise their influence by dividing them into two competing camps. His strategy was to have Thirumavalavan and Ramadoss to campaign for him and blunt Vaiko’s campaign. Now only Thirmavalavan is with him. He will contest in the Chidambaram constituency.
Pro -Eelam
The pro-Eelam group is taking steps to make Thirmavalavan ineffective by pitting PMK against him. Ramadoss has vowed to lead the campaign against Thirumavalavan. “We will ensure his defeat,” he announced on Sunday.
The pro- Eelam group has also decided to campaign for the separate state of Tamil Eelam as a solution to the Sri Lankan problem. Their slogan is: ‘Vote for the candidates who accept the creation of Tamil Eelam’.  And Vaiko’s MDMK had adopted Tamil Eelam as its stand. Its manifesto released on Thursday says: The MDMK believes that a separate home land i.e. Tamil Eelam for the Tamils is the only way to solve the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.
MDMK had also raised the issue of state autonomy, a sensitive issue in India and an issue that will have implications for Sri Lanka. Its election manifesto says: ‘MDMK emphasises that the multi- national and multi- linguistic states in the Indian sub-continent should have full autonomy in their own states…’ The DMK’s counter to these developments is meek. Its election manifesto still speaks of ceasefire and a journalist asked Karunanidhi on Sunday, “Are you still for a ceasefire”?  His reply was,“We have been asking for a ceasefire for the last six months. But the Sri Lankan government refused to listen to it”.
Karunanidhi’s reply supports the pro-Eelam charge that he did not force Manmohan Singh, to exercise India’s influence, and that what he did was play acting.
Propaganda
Propaganda to win the sympathy of the people for the Eelam cause had already begun. Periyar Dravida Kazhalagam has started distributing CDs containing the scenes of the situation in the Vanni, with the request to those who receive them to make copies and distribute them to others. The Congress which is worried about its impact on the election, has protested to the Police and the Election Commission.
NDTV which conducted an opinion poll in Tamil Nadu about the prospective result of the election, found that the popularity of the DMK group and the ADMK group almost equal, at 40 per cent.  It also found that LTTE’s popularity in Tamil Nadu was never so high after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.
The Pro- Eelam group is determined to transform that sympathy into anti- DMK –Congress votes. It seems that the LTTE is hoping just that. LTTE political chief P. Nadesan in his interview to the Communist Tamil daily Janasakthi said last week, “Our strength is the support we derive from the Tamil people in Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Diaspora.
The people of Tamil Nadu will act in an appropriate manner in the forthcoming election.”