For Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the demise of its party president and founding member M Karunanidhi would be an irreparable loss considering he led the party for five decades and through two major splits.
For Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the demise of its party president and founding member M Karunanidhi would be an irreparable loss considering he led the party for five decades and through two major splits.
Though the question over the successor for Karunanidhi is settled with the elevation of his son MK Stalin as the party working president in January last year, whether he would be able to keep the party intact and fill the big shoes of the veteran leader remains to be seen.
Even though Karunanidhi on several occasion hinted at his younger son Stalin would succeed him, he, however, did not anoint him as long as he was active in politics.
In January 2017, DMK’s general council promoted Stalin as party’s working president after the veteran, already bound to a wheel-chair, has been rendered speechless because of tracheostomy and left him virtually inactive since October 2016. Stalin’s elevation in the party also comes after the demise of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa and subsequent rebellion in the ruling party.
Stalin's promotion seems to have put an end to the family feud between him and his elder brother Alagiri who was expelled from the party in the runup to the Lok Sabha polls in 2014. Alagiri’s hope of making a comeback to the party would be difficult in the post-Karunanidhi DMK.
Political analyst Prof Bernard D'Sami said that biggest challenge before Stalin is how he would consolidate himself within the party and family. "Karunanidhi remained a uniting factor in the party as well as family. Now Stalin has to consolidate himself as party leader with the backing of cadres and seniors supporting his father to avoid any split that would weaken the party. In his own family, we don't know how he is going to deal with Alagiri," he told DNA.
Stalin’s step-sister and party’s women wing secretary Kanimozhi is content with the present arrangement and acting as party’s face in Delhi. She also hopes to get bigger responsibility in the party.
Stalin’s biggest challenge would be facing the comparison between him and his father’s leadership qualities. In fact, the Opposition parties and political commentators lament in the recent past on how Karunanidhi would have handled the political uncertainties in the wake of Jayalalithaa’s death and split in the AIADMK.
After two successive defeats at the hustings, Stalin has to prove himself in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It will be the first election in the past three decades in Tamil Nadu in the absence of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi. Prof Bernard D'Sami said that unlike the divided AIADMK if the DMK put up a united front, it would be an advantage for it.
"Stalin has to capitalise on the political vacuum. How far he will do is the big question?" he said. With new entrants like rebel AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, actor turned politicians like Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, Stalin has to lead his party’s alliance to a major victory to consolidate his position in the do or die battle.
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