Chennai: The just concluded civic polls in Tamil Nadu have brought to the fore a not too closely guarded secret: that there are at least five chief ministerial candidates in waiting within the ruling DMK and its allies.
The list comprises Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi's two sons M K Stalin and M K Azhagiri, PMK chief S Ramadoss' son Anbumani, Murasoli Maran's son Dayanidhi. Adding to the list of star sons is the star himself - Vijayakanth.
Post-polls, all have been thrown into the favourable limelight and harbour hopes of one day taking over the chief minister's mantle.
The DMK has won 1,550 municipal seats and its allies another 500. The seven-party alliance has captured about 200 corporation, nearly 2,500 town and 300 district panchayat seats, as well as 2,000 village posts.
Of the 155 wards in Chennai Corporation, the DMK has taken 90 and its friends the rest with only three going to the AIADMK.
The civic polls have ensured that Stalin, 52, a first-time minister who was entrusted with local government, has uninterrupted ‘grassroots loyalty’ for the next five years. It has taken the "heir apparent" 30 long years to get a berth in the Karunanidhi cabinet.
Karunanidhi had banished his other son Azhagiri to Madurai in the 1990s to keep him away from Chennai. But he could be back in the reckoning -- after the civic polls and the by-election to the Madurai Central assembly seat, vacated by the death of DMK strongman P.T.R. Palanivel Rajan, the southern districts are now completely Azhagiri's.
The DMK victory in deep south, for long considered an AIADMK bastion, is credited to Azhagiri's hard work. Azhagiri has not yet made any claims; but for how long is the question.
There are other hopefuls in the fray.
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To the utter dismay of senior DMK politicians like T.R. Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran, Murasoli Maran's son and union Communications and IT Minister, from being a political unknown has become a smart pointsman for the party in the short span of two years. His closeness to Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is well known.
Maran junior got thunderous applause in the civic poll campaigns when he said MDMK's Vaiko is like the Tamil actor Asokan who began as a hero, then became a villain and ended as a comedian.
This civic polls has brought another home truth to the DMK -- that its ally PMK's S. Ramadoss sees his son Anbumani Ramadoss, India's health minister, as the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
In its campaigns for civic posts, supposedly as a DMK ally, PMK youth brigade have been reportedly shouting, "Who will be chief minister of Tamil Nadu? Anbumani Ramadoss, of course!"
Like Maran, the central posting has worked like an internship for the English-speaking but so-long unknown Anbumani.
Then there is actor Vijayakanth, who has bettered his votes in the local polls. Floating the DMDK just a few months before the May 2006 assembly elections, Vijayakanth became legislator at first shot.
In the local polls, his DMDK won 100 municipality seats, nearly 200 town seats, 16 corporation seats and about 200 panchayat seats, a noteworthy performance by any account. Vijayakanth makes no bones that he is "the alternative" for Tamil people.
In the Madurai by-polls too, the DMDK polled about 17,500 votes and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha knows that he, known popularly as Karuppu MGR, cut into her vote bank.
A thrilled Karunanidhi, therefore, praised Vijayakanth saying his was a "creditable performance".
Could one of Vijayakanth's future roles be that of chief minister? Given politics in the state, it could most certainly be.
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