Rare 'Bonhomie' With DMK Irks Tamil Nadu BJP Fanbase But Party Has Its Political Compulsions

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tamil Nadu state president K Annamalai and Union Minister of State L Murugan were at a programme in Chennai on 18 August in which a commemorative coin dedicated to former chief minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) patriarch M Karunanidhi was released.

The DMK has been celebrating Karunanidhi's centenary in a big way and the request to the Centre to issue a commemorative coin was one of the party's many initiatives.

During the programme, Singh showered praise on Karunanidhi.

Terming him as one of the most revered leaders of the country, a titan of Indian politics, an able administrator, an advocate for social justice, and a cultural stalwart, he said, “While deeply rooted in Tamil identity, Thiru Karunanidhi never allowed regionalism to undermine the unity of the nation. He understood that the strength of Indian democracy lies in its ability to accommodate diverse voices and identities."

In addition to Singh's speech, a letter sent by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the occasion, which called the former chief minister and DMK stalwart as one of India's most 'illustrious sons' left supporters of the BJP in Tamil Nadu unhappy and they expressed their disappointment quite vocally on social media.

Some of them asked if it was necessary to have sent a delegation to the programme or praise Karunanidhi the way Prime Minister Modi or Singh did.

Further, they wondered if this would not act as a roadblock in the efforts that have been made in portraying the BJP as a party that brings a completely different, ie, ‘non-Dravidian’ politics to the table.

While the disappointment was understandable, the BJP also seems to have had its political compulsions, ie, being caught between a rock and a hard place.

If the Centre did not release the commemorative coin, the DMK would have gone to town saying that it was indulging in vendetta politics and if it did that, its own supporters would be questioning them.

The BJP Has Been Generous With Opposition Leaders Before This

Also to be kept in mind is the fact that this is not the first time that the BJP has profusely praised an opposition leader after strongly criticising him in the past.

The central government even gave a Padma Vibhushan award to Sharad Pawar a few years after terming his Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as "Naturally Corrupt Party".

Again, it is also not as if the DMK and the BJP have never been together. The DMK was part of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance when Atal Bihar Vajpayee was the prime minister. The ideological differences were the same even then.

Going further than Karunanidhi, Murugan has even praised Dravidian ideologue, E V Ramasamy.

While all of that was in the past and the point on political compulsions is understood what else could explain the praise of Karunanidhi by Singh and PM Modi? 

One reason might be that the BJP would need the support of the DMK MPs in Parliament, especially in the Rajya Sabha.

The other could be to cater to swing voters or those who used to vote for the Dravidian parties but are open to voting for the BJP now.

The latter is indeed a sizeable section. These are people who used to like the DMK or the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) till Karunanadhi or J Jayalalithaa were alive but are disillusioned with them under the leadership of Stalin and Edappadi K Palaniswami respectively.

Therefore, occasionally saying a couple of things in praise of Karunanidhi could help make them more amenable to the BJP, quite similar to how the BJP tries to woo the AIADMK vote bank by speaking positively about Jayalalithaa, even though she was accused of accumulating disproportionate assets and withdrew support to one of Vajpayee’s governments.

However, at the end of the day, the right thing to do might actually be not reading too much into it. All of this could be merely out of courtesy and due to the nature of the state's politics, where leaders like Karunanidhi and M G Ramachandran have been hero-worshipped.

At the same time, supporters of the BJP must be prepared to see these kind of incidents happening once in a while.

Politics moves on quickly and it is very likely that on the following day, both the parties would find themselves sparring with each other over issues like the 'Dravidian model', law and order or whether the state government is taking credit for initiatives of the central government.