Polarised in Pondicherry

Polarised in Pondicherry

The surprise is not that the DMK-led R. V. Janakiraman government has fallenin Pondicherry, but that it has taken thus long to do so. It survived whatthen seemed so many close calls or false alarms before succumbing toinexorable political logic over the weekend. Its fate appeared sealed themoment the Tamil Maanila Congress snapped its over-three-year-old ties withthe DMK in Tamil Nadu following the latter's decision to ally with the BJPfor the Lok Sabha elections. But the TMC's political about-turn was as yetincomplete. It experimented with "equidistance" between "corruption andcommunalism" or the AIADMK and the BJP and tried to float a "third front".This kept alive hopes for the survival of the regime in the Union Territorythat has generally kept political pace with the main Tamil-speakingstate.

Coming a cropper in the parliamentary polls, however, G. K. Moopanar and hisparty did not take long to change tracks and to cause tremors again in theformer French enclave. The recent state Assembly byelections provided theTMC an occasion to renounce the purist line of no profit and to make commoncause with Jayalalitha and join the AIADMK-Left camp. Hope still remainedfor the DMK on the Pondy front as the TMC had proclaimed a new alliance onlyfor the byelections. Even when Moopanar's men pulled out of the Janakiramanministry, his party refrained from withdrawing outside support for it. Thecarpet-pulling climax came only after the TMC abandoned "equidistance" andannounced the continuance of the AIADMK-led alliance for the Assemblyelections due early next year. The political realignment must be viewed aspart of a larger polarisation.

The poll-by-poll progress towards the TMC-AIADMK alliance has beenaccompanied by moves towards a rapprochement between Moopanar's parish andthe parent party at the national level. The TMC's Pondicherry decision toback the Congress under legislature party leader V. Vaithilingam to form analternative government and even to join it, if necessary came afterMoopanar had made as many visits to 10 Janpath, New Delhi, as would beexpected from any state satrap of the Sonia Congress in a similar situation.

A TMC-Congress merger may not be imminent, but there is no mistaking thedirection of the developments. The consolidation of the Congress parivar inTamil Nadu and its cosying up with the AIADMK may appear a pointer to therestoration of a past of the days of M. G. Ramachandran when the durabledeal was struck and, even more, of those before a section of the Congresssplit away under Moopanar in protest against a poll pact with Jayalalitha.

With the change in Pondicherry, the DMK-TMC relations have reached a pointof no return, at least for the foreseeable period. Much can, and will, besaid about this being a breach of the popular mandate in the last Assemblyelections in Tamil Nadu as well as the Union Territory. It is. More to thepoint is the poser: could the winning combination of those electionssurvived the polarisation growing through almost all the polls witnessed bythe country since then? Not many may answer in the affirmative. Therealignment deserves to be welcomed at least to the extent it has exposedthe utter irrelevance of the idea of a "third front".