By Walter Jayawardhana
Vaiko Gopalaswamy, Sri Lanka’s most virulent enemy in India and close friend of Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was expelled from his own party by dissidents yesterday from the leadership of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) splitting the party into two.
The party suffered a vertical split with two Lok Sabha party members supporting him and two others leading the splinter group.
The crisis in the party snowballed after he expelled dissident leaders of the party L. Ganeshan and Gingee R. Ramachandran, who are now leading the splinter group and trying to grab the MDMK and its property from him.
A controversial politician, although supporting Prabhakaran to divide Sri Lanka, in the Tamil Nadu assembly he is politically allied with the Opposition leader Jayalitha Jayaram’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ( AIADMK) who continues to oppose any move by Sri Lanka’s LTTE and openly calls them terrorists. LTTE also keeps her name in the list of their targets to be assassinated. Though allies both parties have agreed to differ on the issue and interestingly, Vaiko was prosecuted and sent to jail under India’s now cancelled POTA laws against terrorism by the administration of then Chief minister Jayalitha Jayaram for supporting the banned LTTE. Although he utters racist Tamil rhetoric against Sri Lanka Vaiko is not a Tamil. He has eschewed his real identity and has embraced extremist Tamil nationalism as his brand of politics. He was born in fact to Telugu speaking parents.
Fourteen years ago Vaiko broke away from the main DMK alleging nepotism on the part of Chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi since he was fashioning his son M. K. Stalin , named after the Soviet dictator, to rule Tamil Nadu after his death. Today, the son is a cabinet minister of the father. Vaiko hates Karunanidhi more than the ‘Amma’ who sent him to jail. His greatest ambition is to grab the political power now enjoyed by Karunanidhi in the Tamil Nadu state.
He has alleged Karunanidhi of conspiring to drive a wedge between him and the dissidents Ganeshan and Gingee and instigating them to grab party headquarters Thyagam for them. Whatever conspiracy, if happened , took place unaware to him. The dissidents rebelled against him at a time he was doing a protest march, ‘pada yatra’ grandstanding the water conflict with the neighboring Kerala State. Water conflicts regarding sharing river waters has become a cheap method among politicians in the parched Southern Indian states to win easy popular support. Taking a cue from them the LTTE stopped water to nearly 20,000 families in the Sri Lankan conflict by shutting off Mavil Aru irrigation canal. Analysts have said that if Tamil extremists had their secret wishes fulfilled and succeeded in forming the putative ‘greater Eelam’ with Prabhakaran-enjoining the separated Northern province of Sri Lanka with the separated Tamil Nadu water-wars would preoccupy them for the next hundred years with neighboring states like, kerala, Andra Pradesh and Orissa. When this protest campaign started over the waters of Mullaperiyar Dam Vaiko wanted to be more popular over Karunanidhi.
Tamil Nadu, which gets the diverted Mullaperiyar waters to irrigate its southern districts, wants to increase the storage level to 142 feet, while Kerala says it would make the dam burst, putting at risk 3.5 million Malayali people living downstream.
Even as the Supreme Court has asked the two states to settle the dispute through talks, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi initiated the new campaign releasing half-page advertisements in English, Tamil and Malayalam newspapers in Tamil Nadu and Kerala telling the water level should be increased. To win the Tamils against Malayalis Vaiko went on the protest march beating Karunanidhi.
The Congress Party’s Kerala chief minister V S Achudanandan retorted with similar advertisements to Tamil Nadu advertisements arguing why the water level of the dam cannot be raised as people like Vaiko and Karunanidhi demand: "We wish to convey the grave threat that is being faced by the 35-lakh people in Kerala" This 111-year-old lime and surkhi is unsafe for the people living downstream," his ad claimed.
It was during this time, Vaiko says, that the conspiracy by Karunanidhi against him took place. It was also during this time pro-Prabhakaran TNA using Karunanidhi obtained a Man Mohan and Karunanidhi interviews that could not be obtained by Vaiko few weeks ago.
It is most likely both parties would go to courts claiming the ownership of the party and its headquarters, Thyagam in the coming weeks.
Vaiko wears a black scarf around his neck as his political brand. Karunanidhi seems to be determined to tell rabble rouser Vaiko that he is wearing black for his own political demise.
