Tamil Nadu is yet again experiencing the “flavour of byelections.” On October 6, Madurantakam in the north and Dharapuram in the west will have polling to decide their representatives to the Assembly. As five more constituencies are also vacant, byelections are expected again, once legal hurdles are cleared.
There is also an ongoing litigation in the Madras High Court over the election results in the Tirupattur Assembly constituency, where the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK)’s candidate R. Seenivasa Sethupathy was declared elected by just one vote.
Interestingly, 40 years ago, Tirupattur hogged the limelight, even at the national level, for strange reasons. The constituency’s seat in the Assembly went vacant following the death of the 58-year-old V. Valmiki of the Congress (Indira) – which was how the Congress was called then – in Karaikudi in December 1980.
At the time of the Assembly poll then, the Congress (I), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and the Muslim League were together, while the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) headed an eleven-party coalition that comprised smaller parties such as the Communist Party of India, CPI (Marxist), Gandhi-Kamaraj National Congress (GKNC), Tamil Nadu Kamaraj Congress (TNKC), All India Forward Bloc (AIFB), Congress (Urs), and the Lok Dal. The front had relatively less-known parties including the Tamil Nadu Muslim League, All India Muslim League, Republican Party (Gavai), and Working People’s Council. The AIADMK’s founder M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) stormed back to power in the Assembly poll, as his party secured a simple majority with 129 seats and its allies, 33 seats.
Fractured ties
When MGR began his second innings as Chief Minister in June 1980, it was not all rosy for him at the outset, as he had to encounter the powerful Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had been nursing a sense of grievance against him for what, she considered, an act of betrayal to her in the run-up to the Thanjavur Lok Sabha byelection, which was held in June 1979.
While in the Opposition, Gandhi, who ran the Congress party named after herself, was keen on getting back to Parliament at the earliest, after her expulsion from the Lok Sabha in December 1978 for breach of privilege following her spectacular victory a month earlier in the Chikmagalur (called Udupi-Chikmagalur after the 2008 delimitation) bypoll. In May 1979, the AIADMK announced it would have an alliance with the Congress (I), which was preparing to field its leader from Thanjavur.
Mr. S. Singaravadivel (Congress-I) who won the Thanjavur Lok Sabha seat defeating his nearest
DMK rival, Mr. Anbil P. Dharmalingam, by an overwhelming margin of 92,848 votes in a 12-cornered contest, on June 18, 1979.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu Archives
Subsequently, MGR had developed cold feet towards the idea of the former Prime Minister contesting from the constituency. Eventually, the Congress decided it would field lesser-known S. Singaravadivelu. Though the Congress had won in Thanjavur with the support of the AIADMK, it was well known that the relationship between the two was all but over. In September 1979, the national party and the DMK announced that they would contest together in Tamil Nadu during the 1980 Lok Sabha polls. While the two had scored a thumping victory in the parliamentary elections, they suffered a stunning defeat in the Assembly polls at the hands of the miserably to the AIADMK-led coalition, which was not considered the frontrunner.
Bitter feedback
It was against this backdrop that MGR began his second innings as the Chief Minister. Veteran civil servant and former Governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra P.C. Alexander, who served the former Prime Minister as her Principal Secretary during 1981-84, devoted a chapter in his memoirs – My Years With Indira Gandhi – to the relationship between the two leaders. He recalled that during the Prime Minister’s visit to Chennai during September 11-12, 1981, she called MGR to join her in the car from the airport to the Raj Bhavan (now Lok Bhavan). “To put it mildly, the talk that followed was not pleasant. Indira Gandhi expressed her great annoyance at the nasty attacks on her by MGR’s Ministerial colleagues…he found Indira Gandhi in a really agitated mood.”
The Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi with Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran at the valedictory function of the World Tamil Conference in Madurai on January 10, 1981.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu Archives
The Chief Minister, at the Raj Bhavan, had protested to Alexander about the “tone and manner” of the Prime Minister. However, The Hindu, reported on September 12, 1981 that MGR, after a two-hour review by Indira Gandhi of the progress of development schemes in Tamil Nadu, told journalists that the Prime Minister seemed to be “well disposed” towards the Tamil Nadu Government. Gandhi had indicated to him that the Centre would not turn down “legitimate claims” of the State government.
Bypoll announcement
Two weeks later came the announcement that the bypoll to the Tiruppathur constituency, the event of which, in the words of MGR, “might cause turns and twists in the political climate of Tamil Nadu.” Polling would take place on November 29.
The Chief Minister’s observation drew sarcastic comment from his traditional adversary, DMK chief and former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, as recorded in MGR: A Life,” authored by political writer R. Kannan: “He is capable of making changes easily. In the Thanjavur [by-]elections, he took a decision at 10 p.m. At 10.30 p.m. he changed [it]. Therefore, I don’t know what change he would bring this time.”
M.G. Ramachandran with M. Karunanidhi.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu Archives
Rapprochement bid
Despite shabby treatment by the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister did not give up his efforts to re-establish his equations with her. On the eve of Gandhi’s departure in the third week of October for Romania and Mexico, where she met the President of United States Ronald Reagan for the first time, he sent his best wishes to Gandhi.
At the same time, a group of leaders of the Congress (I) including Union Finance Minister R. Venkataraman (RV) and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC – I) president M.P. Subramaniam (MPS), began making statements publicly, giving the impression that their party’s ties with the DMK had come to an end. RV and MPS, who originally began his career in the DMK and migrated to the Congress along with E.V.K. Sampath, told the Press that “the current thinking in the Congress (I) is that it should contest the Tiruppathur Assembly by-election “on its own.”
Asked if this would mean a break with the DMK which had forged an alliance with the Congress (I) during the 1980 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the Union Minister replied that “you may draw your own inference; there are no permanent alliances or permanent enmities in politics,” according to this newspaper on October 18, 1981. Even a few months ago, the hints were dropped by general secretary of the Congress (I), Kalpanath Rai, described the tie-up as “temporary.”
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran seeing off Prime Minister Indira Gandhi before departure to New Delhi at airport, in Madras on September 11, 1981.
| Photo Credit:
DIPR
On October 31, MGR called on Indira Gandhi in New Delhi and The Hindu reported he sought her support for his proposal to extend reservation of jobs to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the private sector too. He had also invited her to take part in the centenary celebration of nationalist poet Subramania Bharati in December. Quoting sources in the AIADMK, the report stated that the discussion did not cover the byelection.
Opposition unity
Even as the AIADMK had been inching closer to the Congress (I), seven parties – the CPI, the CPI (M), TNKC, GKNC, AIFB, Progressive Muslim League and the Peasants and Workers Party – met in Chennai on November 4 and decided to field a common candidate. A day later, the Janata party named its candidate, T. S. S. Thirumal Yadav. The CPI had fielded V. R. Shanmugham, who was supported by the organisation’s allies including the CPI (M). In the 1977, the CPI, a partner of the Congress then, bagged the seat, defeating the two Dravidian parties. The winner was S. Shanmugam Koothagudi. He, however, finished third three years later to Valmiki and former Minister for Law, Education, Revenue and Industries in the DMK’s Cabinets, S. Madhavan, who was in the fray as an independent.
But, this time, the contest was essentially two-cornered – between the Congress (I)’s R. Arunagiri and the Janata’s nominee. On the day when the ruling party at the Centre announced its candidate, a statement was issued by the party’s president and the Prime Minister, who said: “We are putting up our own candidate. We welcome support from all political parties and all sections of the people in Tamil Nadu”. Aimed at widening its gap with the DMK, the Congress (I)’s general secretary M. Satyanarayana Rao left it to the TNCC (I) president to decide as to whether leaders and workers of other parties should be invited to campaign for the success of his party’s candidate.
Comment | MGR’s mojo, time tested and enduring
Dravidian majors’ response
It was at this stage that Karunanidhi had announced his party’s decision to support the Congress (I) candidate, a move of which, according to him, was taken by the organisation’s executive. However, he and his partymen would not campaign for the candidate “on their own” and the DMK would do propaganda for the Congress (I), only if it was invited.
A couple of days later, the AIADMK’s executive met in Madurai; welcomed the statement of Indira Gandhi and decided to back the Congress (I)’s nominee. The reason adduced by the party was this: “Excepting the vacancies arising through the verdict of courts, in other cases the party which won the seat in the previous election should be supported and the vacancy filled by that party.” This announcement was read out by Power Minister S. Ramachandran in the presence of the Chief Minister, according to this daily on November 7, 1981. But, R. Nallakannu of the CPI, P. Nedumaran of the TNKC and Kumari Anandan of the GKNC, who had met MGR earlier to seek his support for the common candidate, were “highly critical” of the announcement. Dr. Kannan terms the move as one “tantamount to making a mockery of democracy.”
MGR involved himself in the campaign intensively and on the last day of campaign, he addressed people at 20 places while Karunanidhi and his senior colleagues kept themselves away from the arena. The Hindu, on November 28, stated that the DMK’s general secretary K. Anbazhagan visited Madurai the previous week but did not go to Tiruppathur. “This is construed as a hint of the DMK’s boycott of the election, though Mr Karunanidhi issued an appeal to extend support to the Congress (I),” the newspaper added.
Aftermath
Needless to say, Mr. Arunagiri went on to win the byelection comfortably. He bagged about 42,000 votes against his nearest rival from the Janata who secured around 17,600 votes. The CPI’s candidate got 11,515 votes. R.V.Swaminathan, who was the then Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Sivaganga’s MP, appreciated MGR but complained about the DMK’s attitude. This newspaper wrote that “contrary to assurances given by the DMK high command, by and large many party volunteers and members of the Tiruppathur taluk worked for the Janata candidate.”
The political re-alignment, which MGR foresaw at the beginning, was only in the stage of infancy. Despite feeling left out by the Congress (I) and the Prime Minister, the DMK, even eight months later, supported the national party’s candidate, Zail Singh, in the 1982 Presidential election. It took some more time for the two Dravidian majors to stitch up their alliances with the national parties such as the Congress (I) and the Janata for the 1984 Lok Sabha polls.
