Of the five states going into election mode, it is Tamil Nadu that will most affect national politics. When some Tamil commentators had predicted — as early as 18 months ago — that Vaiko would make common cause with Jayalalithaa before the elections, it had appeared an implausible scenario. Yet both Vaiko and Jayalalithaa benefit from this tie-up.

The former has his eyes set on 2011 — on the post-Karunanidhi phase — and he is positioning himself to make a bid for the leadership of the DMK, or at least a sizeable section of it. His tie-up with Jayalalithaa helps him to spread his wings. As for Jayalalithaa, Vaiko helps her to get her poll maths right. Her victory in 1998 was due to the alliances she had forged with smaller parties, representing even four, two, or even half a per cent of vote share. Karunanidhi took a leaf out of her book in the 2004 general elections. Both the AIADMK and the DMK have a similar vote base — ranging from 26-30 per cent of the votes — and the secret of their success has depended on the alliances they forge to shore up their presence.

In the last two years Jayalalithaa has determinedly fought back incumbency. Within hours of the 2004 verdict, she had reversed policies which had led to her rout — including reinstating dismissed government employees and revoking the controversial conversion policy. Now that she had won over Vaiko, she is wooing the Forward Bloc and the CPI, and both parties may join her. Film star Vijay Kanti, who had threw in his lot with the AIADMK, is already drawing huge crowds. By aligning with Vaiko, Jayalalithaa hopes to consolidate her hold on southern Tamil Nadu where Vaiko has support . That she could execute this about turn without batting a eyelid, indicates her pragmaticism. For her, politics holds no permanent friends or permanent enemies — apart from the DMK.

Ironically, Vaiko’s exit may not be bad news for the Congress, which does not have much of a stake in Tamil Nadu anyway. With the “release” of the 22 seats earmarked for the MDMK, the Congress can now hope to increase its share of seats from the present 35 promised by M. Karunanidhi. The Congress also knows that a defeated — or chastened — Karunanidhi will stay close to its side in Delhi. As numbers go, it is only Karunaidhi who can facilitate an alternative government in the 14th Lok Sabha, formed with the help of parties like the NCP, SP, smaller groups like the TRS, and with outside support from the BJP. Two such attempts had come to naught. It is not for nothing that there are a whopping 13 ministers from TN in the Union government!

While a weakened DMK may keep the Central government safer, a Jayalalithaa victory would make it vulnerable in the long term, since it would lend a momentum to anti-Congress forces. Today, the Left is on the rampage and has tied up with Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Janata Dal(S) on Iran and the nuclear deal. The manner in which lakhs of Muslims came out to protest the Bush visit at rallies in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Lucknow — with occasional bouts of violence — is indicative of the general unhappiness of the community. Even UPA’s ally, the RJD, with its Muslim-Yadav vote bank, had to join the protest in Parliament, mindful of the ground level sentiment in Bihar. Muslim anger — today exploited by Muslim organisations and parties like the SP in Lucknow — may add a new dimension to Indian politics.

The trouble is that the more the Muslims protest on issues of religion, the greater the chances of a Hindu reaction. And as the situation gets polarised, it will be the BJP that is the main beneficiary. In the past, too, it was the Congress that had lost the most in a situation of religious polarisation. The BJP knows this and will happily go for the kill — as the bandh in Lucknow on Sunday indicated. And even as a worried prime minister called for a meeting with Muslim intellectuals — with attempts being made within the party to distance the Congress president from the India-US nuclear deal — BJP leader Yashwant Sinha tried to play on Hindu sentiments when he criticised the PM for singling out Muslims for this initiative.