The AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu of the Edapadi K Palaniswami-O Pannerselvam duo, propped up in Fort St George by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is hoist with its own petard.
When the party’s official spokesman and former Lok Sabha member K Palanisamy, reflecting the popular sentiment of party cadres, announced that it would back the no-confidence motion of the Telugu Desam and the YSR Congress in Parliament, Chief Minister Palaniswamy and Deputy Chief Minister Panneerselvam were so embarrassed that they announced instant expulsion of Palanisamy from primary membership of the AIADMK.
All political parties in Tamil Nadu barring the BJP are united in demanding the Union government constitute a Cauvery Managing Board and a Cauvery Water Regulation Committee before the end of this month as ordered by the Supreme Court on 15 February.
Having given a solemn assurance to HD Deva Gowda, former Prime Minister and champion of Karnataka farmers last September that he would never constitute the CMB, the Prime Minister has no option but to ignore the Supreme Court order authored by no less a person than the Chief Justice of India.
The AIADMK was toying with the idea of abstaining from any no-confidence motion against the BJP government to appease Modi. After the faux pas committed by spokesman Palanisamy, the Chief Minister is left with no room to wriggle out of the situation. He can ill afford to displease Modi.
For Modi and the BJP desperately trying to make their presence felt, the post-Jayalalitha period presented a golden opportunity. The “EPS-OPS” government has been carrying out all diktats from the BJP in Delhi without a murmur.
The administration has been under the direct control of Governor Banwarilal Purohit. How closely this arrangement works can be gauged from the recent forest fire in Tamil Nadu which claimed the lives of 17 young trekkers.
The bureaucrats contacted Governor Purohit first; he in turn contacted Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman. She ordered the Air Force to organise an immediate rescue mission. The Chief Minister was the last in the hierarchy to know about this.
The BJP took credit for the timely response. Whatever electoral gains might have accrued to the BJP were wiped out by the local party leader H Raja warning people that the fate that Lenin statues met elsewhere in the country would befall Periyar statues in south India.
For too long the BJP chased superstar Rajnikant to lead the party as its chief minister candidate. Last heard, the superstar was on a pony ride to a Himalayan cave temple preparing to lead the State spiritually.