Crown of thorns

Crown of thorns

Stalin has to prove to the Tamil Nadu electorate he is a chip off the old block.

Not many people will miss the delicious coincidence of a son rise in a party with the rising sun as its election symbol.MK Stalin earned his spurs during the Emergency and served as a high profile mayor of Chennai. But the long, patient apprenticeship under M Karunanidhi has become a double-edged sword. It gives him credibility and clout among DMK workers but not the aura that his father commanded among the masses. In taking over as DMK’s third supremo after CN Annadurai and Karunanidhi, he will be the first to acknowledge these are giant shoes to fill.

DMK is at the crossroads after failing to unseat AIADMK in 2016, the first instance in three decades of an opposition party squandering anti-incumbency. Stalin led that campaign in which DMK fell short. His subsequent stint as leader of opposition has been tepid despite AIADMK facing internal dissension and its government battling perceptions of a strong central guiding hand. The RK Nagar bypoll loss – where DMK finished third behind TTV Dhinakaran and an AIADMK candidate – was another blow to Stalin’s hopes of capitalising on the post-Jayalalithaa political vacuum.

No less a dampener was his diffidence on the Tuticorin violence. Perhaps, this emboldened elder brother MK Alagiri, expelled from DMK in 2014, to attempt a comeback. With Madras high court still seized of a petition challenging the disqualification of 18 rebel AIADMK legislators, the upcoming Lok Sabha elections are key to DMK’s revival. The large number of marginal political forces – Congress, BJP, PMK, MDMK, VCK, and the potential formations led by Dhinakaran, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan – will test the bipolar character of Tamil Nadu politics and Stalin’s ability to pick pre-poll partners. An opportunity to become kingmaker in Delhi beckons if he succeeds.