coffee_rules Posted March 15, 2021 Author Posted March 15, 2021 Quite a candid interview of S Gurumurthy on TN politics https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/elections/tamil-nadu-assembly-polls-2021/video/tamil-nadu-is-most-hinduised-state-in-india-says-s-gurumurthy-1778666-2021-03-12?utm_source=itweb_video_share&__twitter_impression=true Tamil Nadu is most Hinduised state in India, says S Gurumurthy
Stan AF Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chennai/in-dmk-manifesto-focus-on-women-law-for-75-job-quota-for-tamil-nadu-residents/ Don't know why Stalin isn't stressing more on the 75% job quota for TN residents. Demonetization, botched up GST and now Corona has wrecked the job situation in all states including TN. He needs to take this point to the nook and corner of the state.
G_B_ Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 13 hours ago, coffee_rules said: Quite a candid interview of S Gurumurthy on TN politics https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/elections/tamil-nadu-assembly-polls-2021/video/tamil-nadu-is-most-hinduised-state-in-india-says-s-gurumurthy-1778666-2021-03-12?utm_source=itweb_video_share&__twitter_impression=true Tamil Nadu is most Hinduised state in India, says S Gurumurthy Gurumurthy needs to stfu though...mislead amit shah on rajani entry Plan was for bjp to go alone once rajini came onto the field as minority votes would be split. The problem with likes of gurumurthy and su swamy is that they are loudmouths who crave attention. Promise things which cannot be delivered. From what I know Bl santosh the bjp org sec controlling the cadres on the ground simply does not like gurumurthy. coffee_rules, velu and ravishingravi 1 2
coffee_rules Posted March 16, 2021 Author Posted March 16, 2021 (edited) 28 minutes ago, G_B_ said: Gurumurthy needs to stfu though...mislead amit shah on rajani entry Plan was for bjp to go alone once rajini came onto the field as minority votes would be split. The problem with likes of gurumurthy and su swamy is that they are loudmouths who crave attention. Promise things which cannot be delivered. From what I know Bl santosh the bjp org sec controlling the cadres on the ground simply does not like gurumurthy. Forget him, but a lot of what he says is true. Congress lost in TN for being a nationalist party against two Dravidian parties. The anti-Brahmin to anti-God shift of Dravidian parties (DMK mainly) have failed and TN is more religious than before. There is no ADMK face and DMK has no ideology , but is a mere family party. I follow SGM mainly for being a nationalist in TN. Agree he is a loud mouth and a lot of credit is taken by him. But there is some truth to what he says. Rajani could have backed out because of his health when he was almost ready to form a new nationalist party in TN. Would be ideal going forward, as the superstar in politics is followed in TN politics Edited March 16, 2021 by coffee_rules
G_B_ Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 1 hour ago, coffee_rules said: Forget him, but a lot of what he says is true. Congress lost in TN for being a nationalist party against two Dravidian parties. The anti-Brahmin to anti-God shift of Dravidian parties (DMK mainly) have failed and TN is more religious than before. There is no ADMK face and DMK has no ideology , but is a mere family party. I follow SGM mainly for being a nationalist in TN. Agree he is a loud mouth and a lot of credit is taken by him. But there is some truth to what he says. Rajani could have backed out because of his health when he was almost ready to form a new nationalist party in TN. Would be ideal going forward, as the superstar in politics is followed in TN politics Dont agree with him. Congress descended into factions alongside short term thinking. Indira Gandhi sacrificed TN to kill off Kamaraj politically. There is no nationalist element there. Kamaraj was a Nadar. Would have been hard for DK types to talk anti Brahminism against him, had congress been united. I debate with many dravidian supporters. When i tell them Modi is OBC they change the topic. Moopanar under whom they had 15-20% vote chose to ally with these outfits for short term thinking. He was pressured by Delhi to ensure Congress got good LS seats from the state. Had BJP in TN been at 15-20% there is no way Shah would ally with anybody. A tactial alliance once in a while is ok. But do so continuously will eventually kill you off. Even today, they settled for 25 seats. In 2011 they got 63. Max will win around 15-20 seats. Congress in TN suffers greatly from short termism. This is true of Congress in most units. Look at Maharashtra. From governing outright to fighting 180 seats out of 288 and most likely will end up fighting 140 seats next time around. What is happening in TN is probably the future of Congress all over India over time. The only way they can arrest the decline is to make hard decisions. Out of the 25 seats in TN 1/2 have gone to sons and daughters. They have more leaders than cadre. BJP seats have gone to grassroot leaders or self made imports from other parties. Re AIADMK and DMK. AIADMK did not really have any policy. They are more like a personality built party supported by dominant castes by regions. Goundars in the kongu belt and Devars in the South. DMK have ideology plus+ caste politics. So AIADMK= Personality + Caste + Money, DMK= DK ideology+ Caste+ Money. But the key thing is MGR, JJ and MK were seen as caste neutral. The problem for AIADMK is EPS OPS are not caste neutral and dont have the personality. The number 1 driver of TN is caste + money . Periyar, (or hinduism) , Nepotism , Tamil or Indian nationalism are secondary factors. The simple fact is BJP arrived in TN too late. Gounders and Thevars, relatively religious groups could have been to BJP TN what Lingayats are to BJP in Karnataka. Yoda-esque, coffee_rules, Jimmy Cliff and 1 other 1 1 2
Yoda-esque Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 Dont agree with him. Congress descended into factions alongside short term thinking. Indira Gandhi sacrificed TN to kill off Kamaraj politically. There is no nationalist element there. Kamaraj was a Nadar. Would have been hard for DK types to talk anti Brahminism against him, had congress been united. I debate with many dravidian supporters. When i tell them Modi is OBC they change the topic. Moopanar under whom they had 15-20% vote chose to ally with these outfits for short term thinking. He was pressured by Delhi to ensure Congress got good LS seats from the state. Had BJP in TN been at 15-20% there is no way Shah would ally with anybody. A tactial alliance once in a while is ok. But do so continuously will eventually kill you off. Even today, they settled for 25 seats. In 2011 they got 63. Max will win around 15-20 seats. Congress in TN suffers greatly from short termism. This is true of Congress in most units. Look at Maharashtra. From governing outright to fighting 180 seats out of 288 and most likely will end up fighting 140 seats next time around. What is happening in TN is probably the future of Congress all over India over time. The only way they can arrest the decline is to make hard decisions. Out of the 25 seats in TN 1/2 have gone to sons and daughters. They have more leaders than cadre. BJP seats have gone to grassroot leaders or self made imports from other parties. Re AIADMK and DMK. AIADMK did not really have any policy. They are more like a personality built party supported by dominant castes by regions. Goundars in the kongu belt and Devars in the South. DMK have ideology plus+ caste politics. So AIADMK= Personality + Caste + Money, DMK= DK ideology+ Caste+ Money. But the key thing is MGR, JJ and MK were seen as caste neutral. The problem for AIADMK is EPS OPS are not caste neutral and dont have the personality. The number 1 driver of TN is caste + money . Periyar, (or hinduism) , Nepotism , Tamil or Indian nationalism are secondary factors. The simple fact is BJP arrived in TN too late. Gounders and Thevars, relatively religious groups could have been to BJP TN what Lingayats are to BJP in Karnataka. Man , I bow down to your nuanced understanding of the political landscape velu and G_B_ 1 1
G_B_ Posted March 16, 2021 Posted March 16, 2021 See the real battle for TN will happen post poll in the opposition space. For that we need to delve into the internal workings of the AIADMK. This is just an overview. The story of TN politics is a post poll one... Under MGR AIADMK was a purely personality party. Yes they basically did have caste oriented selections but it was personality of MGR which meant they kept winning. Unlike DMK which was big on ideology under MK ,AIADMK under MGR banked on welfarism and did not comment much on religion. JJ who succeeded him had personality but not the degree of personality that MGR had. She quickly realised that she needed a strong OBC support base. Gounders and Thevars were relatively side-lined in the DMK. DMK was also a bit heavy in northern TN. So she used caste and regions within TN to build a base. That social base was then expanded to be more women friendly and welfarism which aided the SC community the most. Within minorities she targeted Muslims due to the DMK affinity for LTTE who were seen as not Muslim friendly. Its exactly why DMK ties up with Muslim parties much more than AIADMK. JJ kept the major factions (especially goundars and thevars) in check. Imagine the peshwas keeping a track of the maratha sardars. After the death of JJ, Sasikala was aware that she being a Thevar would need to placate the Goundar community proposed EPS a goundar to be CM. As we all know Sasikala was deposed and the Thevar community is angry against EPS. BJP will ask Sasikala to issue a rallying call for Thevars to vote for the AIADMK. Lets see it works. Now, within Thevars, the most dominant sub caste or grouping is Kallar. Sasikala and TTV are both Kallars. Many expect Kallars to ditch the AIADMK the most and vote for TTV. OPS though being a Thevar belongs to a numerically weaker sub caste called Maravar. BJP are also actively targeting this grouping. It is in the BJP interest that OPS retains his seat in Bodi. Even if EPS manages to retain control of the party there is a big question mark of the AIADMK winning ever if Kallar voters dont vote for him. If Sasikala deposes EPS within AIADMK there is a big question mark of goundar voters voting for her or TTV. This is where the BJP has an outside chance. Note an outside chance. Its not easy. If they manage to bring both goundars and thevars under their banner. They can build a formidable machine capable of challenging the DMK. BJP candidate selection for the 17 seats released points to that direction. They have 2 goundars (Annamalai and Revathi) and they have 4 Thevars (different sub castes). So even if the BJP get 0/20 the message they are sending to both groups is that if you join under our banner no one group will be dominated. My gut feeling tells me that BJP will make an offer to Sasikala and TTV to join them post poll. They will also see if EPS tries to sideline OPS within the ADMK. From that point they will need to keep the hindu nadars happy who are their existing voters and see if DKV voters back them. Both of these groups have uneasy equations at times with Thevars. If they manage to do all of this. They will be in a position to go alone and get more than 10% of the vote or they will demand 60-70 seats from the ADMK. Only time will tell.... In any case, BJP is transitioning from a Brahmin party to more of a specific OBC and SC caste party in TN. This is the only certainty as of now. ravishingravi and velu 2
Vilander Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 On 3/16/2021 at 9:43 AM, G_B_ said: Dont agree with him. Congress descended into factions alongside short term thinking. Indira Gandhi sacrificed TN to kill off Kamaraj politically. There is no nationalist element there. Kamaraj was a Nadar. Would have been hard for DK types to talk anti Brahminism against him, had congress been united. I debate with many dravidian supporters. When i tell them Modi is OBC they change the topic. Moopanar under whom they had 15-20% vote chose to ally with these outfits for short term thinking. He was pressured by Delhi to ensure Congress got good LS seats from the state. Had BJP in TN been at 15-20% there is no way Shah would ally with anybody. A tactial alliance once in a while is ok. But do so continuously will eventually kill you off. Even today, they settled for 25 seats. In 2011 they got 63. Max will win around 15-20 seats. Congress in TN suffers greatly from short termism. This is true of Congress in most units. Look at Maharashtra. From governing outright to fighting 180 seats out of 288 and most likely will end up fighting 140 seats next time around. What is happening in TN is probably the future of Congress all over India over time. The only way they can arrest the decline is to make hard decisions. Out of the 25 seats in TN 1/2 have gone to sons and daughters. They have more leaders than cadre. BJP seats have gone to grassroot leaders or self made imports from other parties. Re AIADMK and DMK. AIADMK did not really have any policy. They are more like a personality built party supported by dominant castes by regions. Goundars in the kongu belt and Devars in the South. DMK have ideology plus+ caste politics. So AIADMK= Personality + Caste + Money, DMK= DK ideology+ Caste+ Money. But the key thing is MGR, JJ and MK were seen as caste neutral. The problem for AIADMK is EPS OPS are not caste neutral and dont have the personality. The number 1 driver of TN is caste + money . Periyar, (or hinduism) , Nepotism , Tamil or Indian nationalism are secondary factors. The simple fact is BJP arrived in TN too late. Gounders and Thevars, relatively religious groups could have been to BJP TN what Lingayats are to BJP in Karnataka. good write up but needs a few tweaks. Congress moved from around 40% voteshare to less than 15% during moopanars time, it kept loosing non dravidian ( Indian nationalist) vote share to ADMK, Congress never had ground level workers ( they were not belligerent enough , loud enough to get voters to poll booth - they needed DMK to do that part of on the ground work. They just filled in with the face, they did not keep up with the times so to say in the state. Now congress is a minority vote split in TN ( what great shame) - i am sure thats how DMK sees them. Only way for BJP to make it work in TN is to get ground up people who are self made leaders with foot soldiers. They don't even have vote share to loose. velu, coffee_rules and G_B_ 1 2
G_B_ Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 5 minutes ago, Vilander said: good write up but needs a few tweaks. Congress moved from around 40% voteshare to less than 15% during moopanars time, it kept loosing non dravidian ( Indian nationalist) vote share to ADMK, Congress never had ground level workers ( they were not belligerent enough , loud enough to get voters to poll booth - they needed DMK to do that part of on the ground work. They just filled in with the face, they did not keep up with the times so to say in the state. Now congress is a minority vote split in TN ( what great shame) - i am sure thats how DMK sees them. Only way for BJP to make it work in TN is to get ground up people who are self made leaders with foot soldiers. They don't even have vote share to loose. Generally agree. But its a chicken and egg scenario. If you go alone once in a while you will need to invest in cadre to plug in the gaps. This would mean money being spent. They never really had an inclination. It was always short termism via an alliance. Delhi viewed tn just like they viewed wb. So long as the state sent ls members they did not care. It did not warrent longterm effort and investment. Congress atm as you rightly seen as a party which brings in minority (mostly christian) votes in southern tn and a few pockets in the state. Bjp's issue is not foot soldiers but leaders. Cadre base of the bjp is solid. Its an issue of a pan tn leader breaking through. Vilander and coffee_rules 2
someone Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, G_B_ said: Bjp's issue is not foot soldiers but leaders. Cadre base of the bjp is solid. Its an issue of a pan tn leader breaking through. Yes. It's about the face, which is lacking. Yet, without power, BJP will never have the local face. Thus, they look at alliances of variety of small castes and parties, which is the sensible immediate strategy. Modi can inspire the new generation, so maybe it can change in future. One interesting stat, was how BJP Kerela in 2016 got similar vote share as JDU in 2014 which they contested alone. So, the battle is not gone, but they need to crossover 15% vote share limit. Edited March 17, 2021 by someone
Vilander Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 47 minutes ago, someone said: Yes. It's about the face, which is lacking. Yet, without power, BJP will never have the local face. Thus, they look at alliances of variety of small castes and parties, which is the sensible immediate strategy. Modi can inspire the new generation, so maybe it can change in future. One interesting stat, was how BJP Kerela in 2016 got similar vote share as JDU in 2014 which they contested alone. So, the battle is not gone, but they need to crossover 15% vote share limit. there is a bit of a nuance to the TN state. So Dravidian parties inclusive of DMK and ADMK - built themselves in varying degrees based on dravidian nationalism ( dont confuse with secessionist movement of same name earlier) - look at it as sub nationalist agenda ( language, religious revisionism wrt caste and women rights etc, in case of sl tamils international relations, education etc). along with populist measures to win vote bank. Nominally ADMK landed with 40% and DMK with 35% voteshare and kept building coalitions to win power between them - but fundamentally there were slight differences between the vote base of either party. Fast-forward to today DMK's ally is Cong with its face, if BJP wants to grow it needs to build a local face, it cant come in as a nationalist or 'different in class from the masses' or brahmin cast based party. They need to build a pan Hindu identity in TN to create a vote share. In present day DMK is more socialist communist , ADMK has more capitalist socialist communist principles, both are fundamentally self-respect movement of people. G_B_ and ravishingravi 1 1
G_B_ Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 1 hour ago, someone said: Yes. It's about the face, which is lacking. Yet, without power, BJP will never have the local face. Thus, they look at alliances of variety of small castes and parties, which is the sensible immediate strategy. Modi can inspire the new generation, so maybe it can change in future. One interesting stat, was how BJP Kerela in 2016 got similar vote share as JDU in 2014 which they contested alone. So, the battle is not gone, but they need to crossover 15% vote share limit. Not strictly true. Once you reach a critical threshold in vote % usually a face will emerge. Yeddy is prime example of this. Was BJP face in the 90s and inched the party to power. In the case of tn bjp need to top 10% vote and then select a pan tn face. Annamalai is expected to be that face. Though he is on a tough wicket this election, party wants him to build base in the geographic centre of tn in karur ravishingravi 1
Vilander Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 On 3/15/2021 at 4:24 PM, G_B_ said: I do find it a bit ironic that DMK a party that supported (tactically not directly) the LTTE who butchered Muslims in SL, is now against CAA supposedly cause its racist towards Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Muslims_from_the_Northern_province_by_LTTE Strange times indeed..... not because its against muslims but does not include SL tamils.
coffee_rules Posted March 17, 2021 Author Posted March 17, 2021 38 minutes ago, G_B_ said: Not strictly true. Once you reach a critical threshold in vote % usually a face will emerge. Yeddy is prime example of this. Was BJP face in the 90s and inched the party to power. In the case of tn bjp need to top 10% vote and then select a pan tn face. Annamalai is expected to be that face. Though he is on a tough wicket this election, party wants him to build base in the geographic centre of tn in karur If you are comparing Annamalai to Yeddy, Annamalai is too young. Yeddy was more a organic leader since 1980 and has been instrumental in BJP to grow for 20 years before he attained power in 2008, Annamalai has a long way to go. To defeat the caste coup of DMK , TN needs a charismatic leader strongly opposing them, like Rajani.
G_B_ Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 30 minutes ago, coffee_rules said: If you are comparing Annamalai to Yeddy, Annamalai is too young. Yeddy was more a organic leader since 1980 and has been instrumental in BJP to grow for 20 years before he attained power in 2008, Annamalai has a long way to go. To defeat the caste coup of DMK , TN needs a charismatic leader strongly opposing them, like Rajani. And i agree. Annamalai has a long and hard road ahead... Good luck to him
Stan AF Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 (edited) Sitting AIADMK MLA thoppu venkatachalam files nomination as a independent candidate. More likely he will be expelled from the party. Sendhamangalam AIADMk MLA Chandrasekaran expelled from the party after he also filed nomination independently. Edited March 18, 2021 by Stan AF
ravishingravi Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 15 hours ago, G_B_ said: And i agree. Annamalai has a long and hard road ahead... Good luck to him He is the right guy to invest in. Question is how ideologically integrated he is to the party.
G_B_ Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 15 minutes ago, ravishingravi said: He is the right guy to invest in. Question is how ideologically integrated he is to the party. He is young so has time on side. But would have been tempted joined Rajini had that happened. Is close to bjp karnataka being ips officer there. If he works hard bjp might increase his profile by offering him a post in cg. Though he is heavily up against it this election cycle i feel he has made right choice. Senthil balaji has moved to karur assembly. He also jumped from admk to dmk. Mostly will defeat vijaybhaskar of admk there. So there is an opposition vacuum in that district. The karur lok sabha seat is currently held by jyothi ms of the congress. She is just good on social media. No ground game. Thambidurai will be too old next election round and will be 76. So mostly he will get a shot to contest the assembly and ls every 2 to 3 years. Though i dont think bjp will ally anymore, even if they do they will always accomodate him. This is last round of elections for h raja. Post that dont think bjp will bargain for sivaganga. See, admk is weak in that seat he is contesting. Bjp presence is non existant. If he manages to get more than 30% bjp will be incilned to further invest in him. But the very fact he chose a harder but potentially more rewarding long term route speaks volumes of him. Could have easily sought safer ground in Coimbatore.
ash Posted March 18, 2021 Posted March 18, 2021 I have no idea how people here are claiming that BJP has ground level cadres but only lack a leader Are you guys even from TN? Without an alliance, BJP's vote share was around 2.5 percent last time. Of course it would change this time, but I expect MNM to get more than what BJP got in 2016. But playing the devil's advocate here, there are some ways by which BJP can maybe rule TN in the future ( I don't personally like them, but I know this will work) 1) Hindu based Unity won't work in TN. TN should be viewed as collection of caste votes. Nobody identifies as a Hindu here, they identify themselves with caste. Consolidate Caste votes by offering more caste based schemes and reservations. 2) Adopt Dravidian social justice schemes. JJ was a great example, I won't call her a Dravidian leader like Anna or MK, but she was clever and understood what works in TN. She always matched DMK in her schemes. 3) Stay away from anything to do with Hindi 4) Build a state party. TN BJP should be viewed as a separate entity from the center. Critize center's policies based on public sentiment. If TN is against CAA, then the TN BJP should also be against CAA. TN people value state rights a lot. Some level of autonomy is required to attract voters here. Basically to beat DMK or ADMK , be like them or atleast act like them
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