High and Dry

When the DMK manifesto was announced, the question on everybody’s mind was how they were going to fund all the grand populist measures they had announced. This is probably their first official word on the topic:

And how will Karunanidhi obtain the financial resources to fund the DMK's poll promise of a free colour television and rice for Rs 2 a kilo? "Oh that is very easy!" said Maran whose family owns the Sun network, south India's dominant television company.

"There is a company called Midas which supplies liquor and gets Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 6 billion) from the exchequer. We will fund our programmes by diverting government money from such companies," he said.

Interestingly, an AIADMK source told this correspondent that the Midas company is owned by a Jayalalithaa confidante.

PMK’s Ramdoss had raised some noise during the campaign the popularity of TASMAC had actually ruined the state. If he is really serious about curbing the popularity of TASMAC, the government would need to introduce prohibition or privatize the sale of liquor. I guess Dayanidhi Maran’s statement means that they would not be doing either of the above.

On Expected Lines

DMK list of ministers has no major surprises. It was widely expected that Stalin would be part of the Ministry and that has come true. With Dayanidhi Maran’s intention to poke his nose in all the affairs, I’m sure he would be doing lot of stuff behind the scenes. He has already become DMK’s defacto choice to speak to the English news channels.

Vijaykanth on a High

Commenting on Vijaykanth’s victory in the recent elections, S Anand of Outlook writes that Captain was drunk when he was addressing some of the election meetings (via).

The vote for Vijaykanth has to be understood as an abstract protest vote and not an approval of what Vijaykanth stands for as such. On several occasions during the campaign he was in an inebriated state, chewing gum to suppress the breath. Campaigning in Cuddalore, he once assaulted a candidate in full public view because he had apparently used too many vehicles in the convoy causing an accident. On another occasion he ended his speech by suggesting that people vote for the AIADMK; correcting himself after being prompted.

Vijaykanth's calculation is to wait for a post-Karunanidhi scenario. Opinion polls have indicated that Karunanidhi's son Stalin has hardly 1% popularity as chief ministerial candidate; whereas Vijaykanth stands next to Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha. As chief minister as the age of 83, it is only a matter of time before Karunanidhi looks for his successor, most likely in Stalin.

Some of the regional media never mentioned anything about this while covering Vijaykanth’s campaign. That doesn’t mean that Outlook’s statement could be false.