Rising Sun and DMK remain inseparable for 60 years

It was on March 2 in 1958 that the DMK led by its found CN Annadurai was first allotted the Rising Sun symbol by the Election Commission. A year prior to that, in its first ever election contested, since the floating of the party in 1949, the DMK had contested in 112 seats and won 14. Rising Sun was allotted to Annadurai and Karunanidhi, while Navalar Nedunchezhian had contested in the ‘Rooster’ symbol then as independent candidates.  

Even the INC had its symbol changed over years on a couple of instances before settling for the Hand and the Lotus of the BJP, which originally started as lamp symbol of Bharatiya Jan Sangh in 1977, bloomed later, the DMK did not lose the Rising Sun despite suffering two splits. It is a fact that the “Two Leaves” of AIADMK was suspended in 1989 and 2016 after its leader’s MGR and Jayalalithaa’s deaths. 

EVK Sampath along with poet Kannadasan and Pazha Nedumaran had quit the DMK and floated the Tamil National Party in 1961 before merging it with the Congress. A decade later, MGR started the ADMK in 1972. While the two veteran leaders did not stake claim for the symbol, Vaiko had unsuccessfully made a bid for the symbol in 1993, when he broke ranks with Karunanidhi and started the MDMK. From winning a meager 14 seats in the maiden election, the Rising Sun went on to triumph in 184 Assembly constituencies, highest by any party in the state. But recently it has been reduced to forfeiting deposit in RK Nagar by election in 2016. Its leader M Karunanidhi holds the record for winning the maximum number of elections (13 since 1957) on the same symbol. 

In the illustrious 60 years, the Rising Sun would be remembered for the principles it espoused and with it the alleged ideological compromises it had made. An advocate of state autonomy and federal Centre in its formative years and later (it still does), the DMK had also demanded the dismissal of the rival AIADMK by invoking Article 356 of the Constitution on a few instances. 

Anna’s DMK, which had issued a GO to remove religious symbols from government offices in its first regime, does not actively spare a thought for such issues now. A self-proclaimed atheist, DMK working president MK Stalin had justified his visit to places of worship during his Namakku Namey tour. 

The same Rising Sun, which batted for two language policy (English and Tamil) then and continues to do so now, had failed to make Tamil compulsory in schools. The election promise the Rising Sun had made in 1960s to make Tamil the official language remains in the manifesto still.