In TN, Jaya holds the aces

In Tamil Nadu, the political landscape is being churned and several new combinations have come out before the Lok Sabha polls. Here is a look at them.

The Dravida Munnnetra Kazhagam led-United Progressive Alliance front has the Congress and the Dalit Panthers in it.

The All India Anna Dravida Munnnetra Kazhagam-led front has the Left, the Pattali Makkal Katchi and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

Then there is a Sharad Kumar-led front that comprises another actor, Karthick's party and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Also expected in this front is the Puthiya Tamilagam led by Dr K Krishnaswamy.

Also in the fray is actor Vijaykanth's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam whose allies are, according to him, the people and God.

In the DMK front the first problem is the party supremo K Karunanidhi's heirs. Each thinks he is the rightful successor and thus will pull the front in his or her own direction. The end result is that the front will move to the back.

Another problem with this front is Dayanidhi Maran. Some time ago his paper did a survey and anointed Stalin as the successor to the King and all hell broke loose. Some of his employees got killed in the resultant violence. At that time Dayanidhi was exiled but now he is back in the fold thanks to the power of Sun TV owned by his family.

What the people are now asking is, 'You are back on the power bench but what about the employees that died? Will their families ever get justice??

The third problem with this front is the Panthers. The Congress doesn't like the Panthers because Panthers love the Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the Congress cannot forgive the killers of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi though they have no problems hobnobbing with the DMK whose government has been dismissed for its links to the same Tigers.

Guess the MPs that the DMK can bring in makes them more forgivable than the Panthers who are more like a small army division that can be used only for violence and not for their vote gathering abilities.

The AIADMK front lead by J Jayalalithaa seems to hold all the aces. It will take the majority of the seats and leave a few for the PMK, a pair for the Left and another pair for the MDMK.

Sharad Kumar could turn out to be the Mayawati of Tamil Nadu. His party has a Nadar base. Karthick's party has a Thevar base. Dr Krishnaswamy's party has a Dalit base. All he has to do is give a few seats to Brahmins, Naidus, Mudaliars, Moopanars and Chettiars and he will be the king of social engineering. He won't win but it will be a good experiment.

Vijaykanth normally gets 25,000 votes in every assembly constituency. So this time he could get 1 lakh votes in every Lok Sabha constituency. Impressive, but not enough to win.

Mayawati of course is putting up candidates in every seat but her party will not create any ripples.

Jayalalithaa is expected to sweep the polls. The Congress will need her to form the next government. For that they will have to withdraw support to the DMK government in Tamil Nadu. Will they do that? Of course, they will!