IN the long awaited bypoll to the R K Nagar assembly constituency to be held on December 21, the Tamil Nadu state committee of the CPI(M) has decided not to be in the fray but to support DMK from its own platform in order to defeat AIADMK and to expose the nefarious designs of the BJP in the state.

A year ago, the AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha died after 75 days long hospitalisation and since then the events unfolding in Tamil Nadu shows how her ministerial colleagues and close friends are running helter skelter to save their skins by toeing the BJP diktats thereby sacrificing all the long held rights of the state  one-by-one which were held so sanctum during the reins of Jayalalitha.

Even in 2016 assembly elections, Jayalalitha raised the slogan “Modi or this Lady?” and apologised to the people of Tamil Nadu for introducing BJP in the state. Since 2014, she was firm and was at loggerheads with the centre on many issues affecting the state such as attacks on fishermen, GST, NEET and upholding the rights of the state. However, since her death, the AIADMK leaders in their eagerness to gobble up the spoils during the remaining period, started prostrating before Modi.

The BJP on its part has been trying to rule the state by proxy. While the ruling AIADMK was kept on tenterhooks by displaying the might of enforcement wings of the centre, the close-knit clan of Sasikala is targeted to bring them in line. Meanwhile, the centre has gobbled up many rights of Tamil Nadu fully knowing the vacuum prevailing in the state. It has relegated burning issues of the state such as Cauvery, Kadiramangalam, Neduvasal and tried to obfuscate the findings of Keezhadi excavation on the civilization of Tamils. It has strangulated the long held social justice by introducing NEET in the state. In all these efforts of BJP, the ruling AIADMK leaders are bowing to such pressures on their own even without arm-twisting.

On the other side, BJP using the power of the centre has been trying to implement its agenda in Tamil Nadu by dividing the society along the lines of caste and religion and RSS which was hitherto not allowed to take out processions in the state was given a go-ahead with AIADMK ministers themselves inaugurating such events. The newly appointed governor is taking the power in his own hands and the ministers are in attendance to such flagrant violation of rights of the state. Almost every voice raised opposing Modi or BJP is being threatened in the state. The local leaders of BJP are dictating the state apparatus behaving as if the state is under their control.

In such a situation, the state committee of CPI(M) in its meeting on October 30, 2017 at Coimbatore discussed in detail about the political situation prevailing in the state and decided to extend support to DMK from its own platform. The sole aim of this exercise is to defeat the AIADMK for its eagerness to pawn away the rights of the state to the centre and expose its clandestine alliance with the BJP. The state committee is also aware of its commitment to bring an alternative path to the Dravidian parties in the state, the urgent requirement of exposing the nefarious designs of AIADMK-BJP clandestine alliance which is inimical to the interests of the state and its long tradition as a pioneer of social justice in the country. With such an aim, the Party has exhorted its activists to work hard to ensure the defeat of such an unholy alliance.