AA Edit | TN Ruling Bloc Defines Its Politics With Name

The name may say a lot but there is more to it. Secular Social Justice Victory Alliance, even if abbreviated as SSJVA, is not a simple name or acronym like NDA or UPA. But it’s a telling nomenclature that resonates with the political spirit that drives Tamil Nadu as a unified force now. The five-party alliance, led by the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), has been functioning informally and without a name since the new government with C. Joseph Vijay at the helm assumed power in the state on May 10. When the group met, for the second time to formalise its activities and strategies, it took on this rather elaborate moniker that explains to the people what the group of parties have in common to come together.

By squeezing in the two key terms — secularism and social justice — that have been defining the political narrative of the state ever since it emerged on its own with value systems independent of the national mainstream — into the name, Mr Vijay and other leaders of the alliance parties have sent across the message that it is quintessentially a Tamil Nadu coalition having the welfare of the state and its progress as agenda. The assumption of the formal name also indicates the collective objective of the parties, the TVK, the Congress, the VCK, the MDMK and the IUML, to aspire for better governance of the state on the basis of shared values and common principles.

The parties perhaps wanted to shed the image of an informal group that came together after the elections just to save a new government that did not have the adequate numbers or to prevent the imposition of President’s Rule in the state. Now, to emerge as a robust long-term alliance on the lines of the NDA or UPA at the national level or the LDF and UDF in the neighbouring Kerala, the SSJVA has taken baby steps by holding a meeting and finalising various thorny issues amicably. In Tamil Nadu, the SSJVA will be directly in combat with the SPA, the Secular Progressive Alliance headed by the DMK, and the BJP’s NDA that has the AIADMK under its wings.

Bestowing a formal structure to the alliance will enable the members to sort out prickly disputes that might arise between them as there will always be a Big Brother figure to smoothen ruffled feathers and usher in amity among them. Also, the alliance will give the individual parties, particularly the rank and file, a sense of kinship accompanied by a feeling of responsibility to stand by each other and take on the enemy on the other side of the fence with fraternal sensibilities. In other words, the five parties have committed themselves to wage a united fight with the other coalitions, perhaps by roping in the two Communist parties in the state, the CPI and the CPI(M), that are backing the government from outside without coming into SSJVA fold.

Such a declared unity among the parties will also enable the people to take political decisions during future elections, be it the immediate by-elections to fill vacancies in the Assembly or to the local bodies that is not too far away, and also help the smaller parties in the state understand where they actually stand politically.