True to Tamil Nadu’s flair for the dramatic, a fascinating, multi-layered political script unfolded here today. MDMK leader Vaiko took another step in his battle with Chief Minister Jayalalithaa—and the last one in his 42-day padayatra—when he marched into Chennai in the middle of the night and was arrested for breaching prohibitive orders. After a two-hour sit-in along Marina beach and a seven-hour stay at the police station, Vaiko was let off just after noon. He thundered: ‘‘Is this Hitler Raj? Can a man not walk at night on Chennai roads?’’ On the face of it, it was another flashpoint in the fight between Vaiko and the chief minister who got him detained under POTA for 19 months. But the sub-text was more loaded. The posters that appeared on Chennai’s walls this morning hailed Vaiko as ‘‘the hero of Sethusamudram’’ — the ambitious project for which his senior alliance partner DMK claims the credit. The slogans his supporters raised described him the ‘Next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.’ It was obvious to political watchers that while Vaiko was attacking Jayalalithaa, he was also ruffling the feathers of DMK. After all, DMK has been projecting party supremo M. Karunanidhi’s son M.K. Stalin as its chief ministerial candidate. There is also a history of conflict between the two. Vaiko, once Karunanidhi’s favourite, had walked out of DMK 11 years ago to protest against the way Stalin was being promoted. The uneasy relations between the two parties became more apparent two days ago when DMK’s Murasoli carried a poem by Karunanidhi. On the face of it, the poem is a lyrical lament by a disillusioned man to his lady love. It dramatically concludes: ‘‘Enough of cheating each other. Let us not cheat our relatives, parents and the world. Let me live to protect the respect of my race and let those profit-seekers leave. Thanks. Thanks!" Significantly, the poem is called ‘‘Craving for a Palace.’’ In case anyone doubted its true target, the first verse makes it clear. It says: ‘‘I fell in love with you, not lured by your words that your stores were full of diamond stones. My love had no motives. And I thought, my life was nothing without you. But you said, ‘You are nothing without me.’ I did not realise that your words were a sign of arrogance.’’ The context: During his padayatra, Vaiko had claimed that ‘‘no one can take credit for the implementation of the Sethusamudram canal project,’’ even though DMK’s Union Shipping Minister T.R. Baalu has been steering it. To this, Karunanidhi had reacted firmly: ‘‘It is a collective effort and let us put an end to this controversy.’’ But the MDMK was not willing to leave it at that. ‘‘Vaiko, you are the Sethusamudram hero,’’ party workers shouted today at the Chindatripet police station where their leader was kept. They put up posters that proclaimed: ‘‘Yesterday, you were in Vellore fort jail, today you have captured the fort of people’s hearts, tomorrow you will seize Fort St. George (the seat of power in Tamil Nadu).
