The point is that there is always a huge gap between the well-meaning thrust of manifestos and governance decisions that pay little heed to electoral promises.

Tamil Nadu's major Dravidian parties were among the first in India to release their manifestoes ahead of the general election starting April 11. The similarities on major issues in them were unsurprising, but then Tamil Nadu's concerns are somewhat unique even if the parties consider themselves as sworn enemies, although they grew from the same roots of the anti-Hindi agitation and anti-Congressism. Both parties want NEET, the common medical entrance exam, to not apply to the state, seek abolition of national highway tolls, implementation of a private sector quota too and moving education from the Concurrent to the State List. Both parties want river inter-linking as a solution to an eternally water-starved region with no major rivers originating in the state.

The AIADMK has put forth a catchy idea in a Basic Income of Rs 1,500 per month to a targeted population as a way to dehumanise poverty, and to be directly transferred to beneficiaries, while the DMK wants to go back to an administered price regime on petroleum products. Where they vary is in concern for ecological issues, with the DMK wants to save agriculture from exploitative industries, securing farmlands from big development projects and declaring the Cauvery Delta a special agricultural region. But there's a contradiction in the party's promotion of the revival of the unworkable and needless Sethusamudram project. In opposing development in the form of expressways, the DMK is taking a populist stand considering the ferocity of agitations. The point is that there is always a huge gap between the well-meaning thrust of manifestos and governance decisions that pay little heed to electoral promises.