It isn’t difficult to guess the most recurring word in Tamil pollspeak 2009 — ‘Eelam’. But as the campaign closed on Monday, the call for ‘Eelam’ did not exactly rise to a crescendo.

Can’t tell which astrologer told them so but the whole band of Dravidian rationalists were quick to see an uncanny correlation between the Sri Lankan battle in progress and the timing of the poll itself. Across the state on TV sets, owned or obtained courtesy the DMK, the top news at the peak of campaign was the Lankan army closing in on LTTE and civilians trapped or fleeing in acute distress. Any moment it seemed Velupillai Prabhakaran would fall and all hell would break loose.

This sent the mainstream parties scurrying back to the drawing board to re-script the campaign. Between the forenoon fast and the afternoon nap, the entire political class had instantly turned more Eelam-friendly than ever before in the last three decades of the Sri Lankan crisis. Everyone was budgeting for a suitably filmy climax, expected to coincide with the close of campaign.

This is precisely what hasn’t happened. In fact right through the last lap of campaign, when TV showed more IPL than Lanka, the issue has been fading out of the political mindscape. Parties are still making a noise only because it is the only emotive issue that cuts across the 40 Tamil speaking constituencies and can whip up what little emotion is left in a public left cold by calculated tie-ups and allegedly equally calculated cash flow. People joke about their new MPs’ first priority — to lobby for Rs 10,000 denomination notes. A lot easier to distribute.

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