Eye on polls, Karunanidhi does a 'damp squib' pullout show

DMK wants to be part of the ruling alliance as well as the opposition space

The master of optics strikes again. Scriptwriter par excellence, Muthuvel Karunanidhi has long mastered the art and craft of know what buttons to press to get the desired reaction. Leveraging 18 MPs and five ministers, he 'arranged' a confrontation with the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) threatening to pull out (the operative word is 'threatening') if the central government didn't take a stronger position on the rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

So far Karunanidhi has been circumspect about honouring the structure of the Indian constitution. He has always told his more emotional and volatile ministers that management of foreign policy and external affairs is the provenance of the central government and state governments (when he was in power in Tamil Nadu, especially) should not poke their noses in matters they don't fully understand. So even when LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed, the reaction in Tamil Nadu was muted - because that's the way Karunanidhi wanted it.

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But now the situation is different. The United Nations Human Rights Commission is about to adopt a resolution exculpating the Sinhala-led Mahinda Rajapakse government of the most important charge - of genocide of the Tamils. 30 km of water is all that separates Tamil Nadu from Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka. Just 18 per cent of the Sri Lankan population is Tamil. But there are millions of them just 30 km away. the Government of Sri Lanka is conscious of this. so it wants to - via pretty heavy-handed means, it must be conceded - have control over them.

Karunanidhi is more than conscious of this. Like Mulayam Singh Yadav, who periodically criticises the government led by his son because he wants to retain the position of being both the opposition and the ruling party, Karunanidhi wants to be part of the ruling government but also to appropriate the space of the opposition.

No party in Parliament - not even the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK which is Karunanidhi's most hated rival - will have any serious difficulty about supporting a resolution that urges Sri Lanka to put its faith in a more inclusive approach to the minorities on the island. But by getting three cabinet ,ministers to call on him in Chennai, following that up with the threat of withdrawal and then having his way with a resolution in the Indian Parliament, Karunanidhi will have achieved more than he will by just pulling out of the government and sitting in the opposition.

For now, there seems to be no threat to the government, if the UPA can think up a parliamentary resolution that can have unanimous backing. That way Karunanidhi will have put even Jayalalithaa at a disadvantage.