Counting of votes for Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Union Territory of Puducherry began at 8 a.m on Sunday.

Tamil Nadu

M.K. Stalin, DMK’s ‘Commander’, set to rule Tamil Nadu finally

Chennai: For the 68-year-old M.K. Stalin, affectionately called “Thalapathi” (Commander) by members of his DMK, the wait to lead Tamil Nadu as its head will soon get over.

The DMK, led by Stalin, a former Deputy Chief Minister, is all set to come to power after a 10-year hiatus, and has even gained a majority on its own.

With the successive poll victories – the first one was the 2019 Lok Sabha polls – and now the Assembly polls, Stalin has established himself as an undisputed leader within and outside the party.

Stalin has to wait for some more days for his coronation as Chief Minister.

His earlier coronation as the DMK’s second President in 2018 was a smooth affair.

DMK’s then General Secretary K. Anbazhagan then said 1,307 party officials had proposed and seconded Stalin’s candidature.

Stalin was given the role of Working President in January 2017 after his father and party patriarch M. Karunanidhi was largely confined to his home due to age-related ailments.

Born on March 1, 1953 to Karunanidhi and Dayalu Ammal, Stalin was named after the Russian leader Joseph Stalin who died on March 5, 1953 – four days after Stalin’s birth.

Legend has it that Karunanidhi wanted to name him ‘Ayyadurai’ – after DK founder ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy and DMK founder C.N. Annadurai.

Like his multi-faceted father who entered public life at the age of 14, Stalin too started his political journey by becoming an ordinary member of the DMK at the age of 14 and campaigning for the party in the 1967 polls.

A year earlier he had formed a youth forum: Gopalapuram Youth DMK.

Stalin came to public notice at large when he was jailed under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) for opposing the imposition of Emergency by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

He became the party’s Youth Wing Secretary in 1984 and continued to hold that post for a long time.

It was in 1984 that Stalin made his electoral debut from Thousand Lights constituency in Chennai but lost. He finally entered the Assembly in 1989.

The other electoral loss for him was in 1991 at the same seat.

Till date, Stalin has won six Assembly polls – four times from Thousand Lights and twice from Kolathur constituency. His seventh victory comes in 2021.

Stalin was the Local Administration Minister in the Karunanidhi government (2006-11) and became Deputy Chief Minister in 2009 and stayed in the post till 2011.

As the aged Karunanidhi was not able to move much, the mantle of being lead campaigner fell on him in 2016 Assembly polls.

The DMK won 89 seats and narrowly missed the victory to the AIADMK then led by J. Jayalalithaa.

Stalin became the Leader of the Opposition. But the party suffered a shock defeat losing the security deposit in the by-election from R.K. Nagar constituency in Chennai, a seat held by Jayalalithaa. The by-election was won by T.T.V. Dhinakaran, a rebel AIADMK leader who later floated the AMMK.

Before becoming a state minister, Stalin was the Chennai Mayor in 1996-2001 and 2001-02. He was also the party Treasurer.

During his Mayorship, the Chennai Corporation built several flyovers to ease the traffic flow. The AIADMK government headed by Jayalalithaa had, however, arrested Stalin for alleged corruption in building the flyovers.

But it did not affect his career. Even Karunanidhi had once openly declared that if he had a chance then he would announce Stalin as his successor.

But Stalin’s elder brother and former Union Minister M.K. Alagiri – then incharge of the party affairs in the southern districts – opposed it and said he cannot think of anybody else as his leader other than Karunanidhi.

Later, Alagiri was dismissed from the party for anti-party activities.

Meanwhile, Stalin started taking strong hold of the party reins following the indisposition of Karunanidhi.

The Alagiri-Stalin rivalry plagued the DMK for a long time but Karunanidhi kept a fragile peace till his passing away.

Stalin is married to Durga, a believer, and the couple have two children – Udayanidhi and Senthamarai.

Udhayanidhi, an actor turned politician, also made successful electoral debut this time from the Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni Assembly constituency.

Stalin also had acted in two movies and in two television serials.

Succeeding Karunanidhi, an illustrious leader, Stalin did not try to show himself as a leader different from his father, and in all his election campaign speeches, always said he is the son of Karunanidhi.

Roping in political strategist Prashant Kishor to chart the party’s victory route, Stalin continued with the campaign of painting the Narendra Modi-led Central government as “anti-Tamil” and “anti-states”.

The party also successfully built a public perception that it would win the polls and the AIADMK government was subservient to the Central government.

Stalin also carried out hard bargaining for seats with allies and made many of them contest under the party’s Rising Sun electoral symbol.

On the other factors that worked for the DMK in the assembly elections, a political analyst told IANS, were the anti-incumbency against the AIADMK government, the anti-BJP sentiment, alliance arithmetic, the steady cultivation of the perception that it will win the polls over a long period of time, and caste neutrality.

He did not agree that the assembly poll victory was an extension of the DMK-led alliance’s victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“That was a total rout for the AIADMK-led alliance. During the Lok Sabha elections, it was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for the Prime Ministership that was on the centre stage,” the analyst said.

In 2019 there was an anti-Modi wave in Tamil Nadu. But in the 2021 Assembly elections, Stalin was at the centre stage but there was no wave in his favour to rout the AIADMK, the analyst said.

Be that as it may, with the 2021 Assembly election victory and heading the state government, Stalin has very many challenges facing him.

First and the foremost will be arresting the spread of coronavirus.

As an opposition leader, he had fired several salvos against Chief Minister K. Palaniswami. And now Stalin has to take control.

As he used to say, the state finances were in bad shape. And now it is his responsibility to set it right while fulfilling many of the populist poll promises that were made this time.

After years of maintaining an anti-BJP stance, Stalin has to navigate carefully the centre-state relations as a Chief Minister.

What is now certain is that Stalin may come out of his father’s shadows. And the long wait to become the Chief Minister will soon get over.

By Venkatachari Jagannathan

Assam

BJP-led NDA heading to retain power in Assam 2nd time in a row

The ruling BJP-led NDA is heading to retain power in Assam for the second time in a row as the alliance is leading in 68 seats in the 126-member assembly for which three-phase polling ended on April 6.

According to the Election Commission’s initial trends of the results, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party alone is leading in 51 seats while its ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in ten seats and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) is leading in seven seats. The opposition Congress has established initial leads in 21 seats while its partners Bodoland Peoples Front is leading in two seats and All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in nine seats. An independent candidate is leading in one seat.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and AGP chief and minister Atul Bora are leading from Majuli, Jalukbari and Bokakhat seats respectively.

Congress Legislative Party leader and his deputy Debabrata Saikia and Rakibul Hussain both are trailing from Nazira and Samaguri seats respectively.

The counting of votes for 126 Assembly seats in Assam for which polling was held in three phases began on Sunday morning in 34 districts amid tight security and all Covid-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

Assam Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Nitin Khade said counting of votes are being held in 50 Election Districts (34 administrative districts) and there are three tiers of security put in place in and around the counting centres and adjoining areas. “To maintain Covid protocols and guidelines issued by the Election Commission, numbers of counting halls have been increased by 131 per cent — from 143 in 2016 Assembly election to 331 this time,” the CEO said.

In all, 946 candidates including 74 female candidates of different political parties including BJP and the Congress contested the elections.

Kerala

Lotus fails to bloom in Kerala, Sreedharan misses train too

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s statement that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had won one seat in Kerala in the 2016 Assembly polls, would see its account getting closed this time, has come true with the Centre’s ruling party failing to secure any victory despite fighting hard in three constituencies.

In the 2016 Assembly polls, veteran BJP leader and former Union Minister O.Rajagopal had won the Nemom Assembly constituency in the Thiruvanthapuram district, getting the BJP its first-ever seat in the state.

As counting started on Sunday, the BJP was leading in three seats – Nemom, Palakkad and Thrissur.

At Nemom, former BJP state President Kummanam Rajasekheran was maintaining a lead till the last few rounds when former CPI-M legislator V.Sivankutty, who lost to Rajagopal the last time, breezed past him. In the process, Congress MP from Badagara K. Muraleedharan, who was asked to take on the responsibility to prevent the BJP repeating its victory, came a poor third.

Sivankutty won with a margin of over 5,000 votes.

But the major upset was the loss of ‘Metroman’ E. Sreedharan in Palakkad. Leading right from the time counting started, he, however, lost steam in the last few rounds and eventually his Congress rival and Youth Congress President Shafi Parambil completed a hat trick of wins by a margin of 3,840 votes.

Malayalam superstar Suresh Gopi, presently a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, also fought hard at Thrissur and at a few times, was leading, but at the end he had to settle in the third place after giving both the traditional rivals a few frights.

Now, all eyes are on the vote share of the BJP and certainly heads are expected to roll as its state President K.Surendran had to bite the dust in two constituencies where he contested – he came second at Manjeswaram and third in Konni.

West Bengal

Mamata Banerjee loses to Suvendu Adhikari

New Delhi: Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP defeated TMC chief and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by 1,957 votes in the Nandigram seat.

Mamata said she has accepted the verdict of people. “Don’t worry about Nandigram, I struggled for Nandigram because I fought a movement. It’s ok. Let the Nandigram people give whatever verdict they want, I accept that. I don’t mind. We won more than 221 seats & BJP has lost the election,” said Mamata.

Puducherry

Chennai: BJP candidates A. Johnkumar and his son Richard Johnkumar won from their respective Assembly seats on Sunday in the Union Territory of Puducherry.

A. Johnkumar was with the Congress before joining the BJP ahead of the announcement of the Assembly elections in Puducherry.

A. Johnkumar contested from Kamaraj Nagar from where he had won twice earlier as a Congress candidate. He defeated former minister M.O.H.F. Shajahan of the Congress by 7,229 votes.

His son Richard Johnkumar fought a tough battle against DMK candidate V. Cartigueyana before winning by a slender margin of 496 votes from the Nellithope Assembly constituency.

The NDA led by the All India NR Congress (AINRC) is leading in the 30-member Puducherry Assembly with 12 seats. While the AINRC has won 8 seats, 4 seats have been won by its ally BJP. The Secular Progressive Alliance led by the Congress has won 3 seats as the counting progresses.