DMK leaders wax eloquent on Dravidianism

Writer and DMK member Tamilachi Thangapandian set the tone for the day as she, in her inimitable literary style, spoke at length on Dravidian principles in Valluvar’s Thirukkural. An unsurprisingly enthused Tamilachi, who refused to wind up despite the master of ceremony prompting her to cut the speech short retraced the contribution of the Dravidian literary stalwarts, so much so that even some leaders on dais, let alone the ordinary cadre were clueless about the Dravidian litterateurs she mentioned. 

Just when the cadre heaved a sigh of relief, DMK Rajya Sabha MP TKS Elangovan recalled the events that prompted Dr TM Nair, Sir PT Theyagarayar and Panagal Arasar to go big on Justice Party and Periyar. 

Predictably, almost every leader who spoke on the day had two points to record, first, the conduct of the conference in the native of Periyar and second, eulogizing Stalin as the future Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. 

The future CM chorus has been heard for almost a few years. Unlike in the previous zonal conferences, references about Stalin glaringly outnumbered the DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, who was religiously referred by a few old timers in their speeches. 

One of the key speakers of the day, former telecom minister A Raja did not disappoint the audience as he drew a parallel between the topic given to him (revolutions that shook the world) and 2G (the scam that shook the world).

Tamil Nadu politics is not new to sycophancy, but it reached an altogether different height in the DMK zonal conference in Erode. From showing obsequious behavior towards their leaders, now it has reduced to the level of pampering leaders’ family members in public in the grand old Dravidian party.

Speakers, even in the ranks of former union ministers were very particular not to miss the name of party working president MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi, who was as involved as his father in the zonal conference. An articulate former union minister of state for finance SS Palanimanickam, who’s voice stammered unusually in the conference, cared to list out Stalin junior’s name in his opening remarks, and that too, a person seated among audience. As if that were not enough, Palanimanickam’s erstwhile cabinet colleague Jagathratchakan, who’s spiritual oratory has always been a show stealer in the DMK meetings, made Palanimanickam sound better when he briefly waxed eloquent about Stain’s wife Durga’s biographical note on her husband “Avarum Naanum” from a stage created to refresh cadre memory of Dravidian principles. 

That Jagathratchakan cared to introduce Durga Stalin, who was not even on dais, must have surprised a few in the higher echelons of the DMK considering that no leader had ‘bothered’ to do the same even to party president M Karunanidhi in any party rally in the known history of the party. That aside, Stalin obediently emulated his father and got a good number of his family members, wife, sister, brother and son seated in the front row of the conference.