Tamil Nadu: Vaiko stuns party, won’t contest polls

Announcing his decision not to contest the high-stakes May 16 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, MDMK chief Vaiko on Monday charged the DMK with trying to vitiate the “peaceful” atmosphere in this constituency by creating a “conflict between the Naicker and Thevar communities” using his candidature as the focal point.

High drama prevailed at the office of the returning officer for Kovilpatti constituency in this town in Thoothukudi district after Mr Vaiko arrived at the RDO office premises and asked his party’s Thoothukudi district secretary, G. Vinayaga Ramesh, to file his nomination as his dummy candidate.

Since Mr Ramesh did not have enough money to pay the deposit amount, Mr Vaiko offered him a helping hand by paying the amount to the Returning Officer. As he stepped out of the office and boarded an open jeep, Mr Vaiko announced his decision to withdraw his candidature from the Assembly elections.

“The DMK candidate in Kovilpatti from where I had announced that I would contest the Assembly election had publicly said that the community to which he belongs has 70,000 voters whereas the community to which Vaiko belongs to has only 50,000 votes. So, he has openly declared that he would win since there would be division of votes. The DMK did not condemn the statement,” Mr Vaiko said, reading from a written statement.

Mr Vaiko alleged that the DMK candidate, who belongs to the Thevar community, and party cadre have been engineering protests against him by recounting his support for Kausalya, whose husband Sankar was hacked to death recently. While Kausalya is a Thevar, Shankar was a Dalit youth.

Making a veiled attack on DMK treasurer M K Stalin, the MDMK chief said he has received information that the DMK top brass and “the person who has the DMK under his control now” have decided to engineer enmity between Thevars and Naickers centering around me” throughout the district.

Since he is a person who has always stood by the “ideals of Periyar”, Mr Vaiko said he had decided not to contest the Assembly polls keeping in view the events that had taken place in the past few days. He also said he had deep respect for the Thevar leader ‘Pasumpon’ Muthuramalinga Thevar, though an impression is being created that he was against the community since he spoke in favour of inter-caste marriage.

He also recalled the stiff opposition that he faced from Thevar-dominated Vadakku Thittankulam village, where he went to garland Muthuramalinga Thevar statue on Sunday.

However, the DMK refuted the allegations levelled by Mr Vaiko and sought to turn the tables by asking the MDMK leader whether he was upset with the DMDK for not anointing him as the Chief Ministerial candidate. “I think he never wanted to contest Assembly elections. Even in 2001 when Mr Vaiko was in an alliance with the DMK, he found an excuse to not contest the assembly polls. Even now, I think he is doing the same,” DMK spokesperson T K S Elangovan said.

“Mr Vaiko contested Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and 2014. Why did he not level such allegations against the DMK then It looks like he is upset with the DMDK-PWA alliance for not announcing him as the CM candidate,” he said, suggesting that the MDMK chief has understood that “he would be defeated by his own men.”

BJP leader H Raja was quite vocal in his response when he said the MDMK leader has “developed cold feet and jitters” and that is the reason why he has opted out of the elections. “Is he scared so early I think he has developed jitters. The DMDK and PWA alliance has been in great confusion for the past few months. This is the result of the confusion,” he said.