The race to 7, Race Course Road

The marathon voting process ended (May 13) in India with Tamil Nadu, one of the decisive swing states. With the magic number of 272 only a dream for both Congress and BJP led UPA and NDA respectively, a lot of shift in the political alliances are to be expected once the results are declared a few hours from now.

DMK raked up the Tamils issue, quite some time before the election was in the horizon, to use it as a political agenda (The Tamils in Sri Lanka have been suffering for years now. But their sufferings have opened the party's vista only now). It is going to be there for the next state elections too and for the Assembly elections after that and so on. It is like Pakistan dealing with Al-Qaeda. Everybody knows its a problem but nobody will want to do anything about it. But what really sent me hopping with rage was the sycophantic acts of the tamil film industry. Lead by minions like Bharati Raja and Sathyaraj who tow the lines of KK (K.Karunanidhi) shamelessly, the entire industry were arm twisted to take part in the fasts and protests to end the atrocities in Sri Lanka (Yeah right. The minute they protest, Rajapakse would be cowed into submission). And people like Vadivelu groveled behind.

The Third Front's fragility is as obvious as the lack of a common ideology for the 'alliance'. Continuous assertions notwithstanding, I really expect the alliance to shatter as offers are made by both UPA and NDA to woo the individual parties, and the star of the show would definitely be Jayalalitha.

Seriously, I do wish AIADMK wins though, not because I think JJ is good but because she is better (I know this is not state elections but its been sickening seeing Dayanidhi Maran's face in the TV). Even as I am typing this, NDTV is predicting 20 for DMK, 18 for AIADMK and 1 for Vijayakanth's DMDK. I hope JJ gets much more than 18 AND choses to go with BJP. Another, 5 years of weak-kneed UPA is something India can do without.

If for some reason UPA wins more than NDA, I still sincerely hope that AIADMK wins more than DMK. This way, Congress will try to take JJ under their wings (who cares if JJ called Sonia an Eunuch a few years back?). Why this would be significant is, JJ's only main, if not the only condition, for proferring support to UPA is the withdrawal of support for the DMK alliance in TN. This would mean the collapse of the state government and new state elections for TN. Woohoo.

P.S.: Just for the kick of it, I would like to see Modi become the PM. It will be fun to see US Consulate to try and refuse a VISA for him again.