Is This Endgame AIADMK?

Irrespective of who wrests the upper hand in the battle for supremacy within AIADMK, the party appears headed for more turbulence with serious doubts emerging about its future. Apart from who manages the numbers game—party leader Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) or rebels CV Shanmugam and S Velumani—there is a dark cloud hovering over the AIADMK enterprise. The party founded by filmstar MG Ramachandran and later led by J Jayalalithaa suffers from a serious credibility deficit and lacks a leader who can turn it around. EPS and his challengers are seen to be cut from the same cloth and represent the discredited politics that saw voters back actor Vijay’s TVK.

The rejection of Dravidian majors AIADMK and rival DMK is near-complete as voters saw no benefit in replacing one with the other. But for a degree of uncertainty over whether Vijay would indeed form the government, DMK and AIADMK could have lost more ground. AIADMK’s woes are more acute and EPS’ imperious ways and reluctance to accommodate other leaders have accelerated the party’s decline. EPS forgot he does not have Amma’s charisma or organisational control and was at best the first among equals. He is now trying belatedly to hold out an olive branch to the rebels but it might be too late. Lasting five years in the opposition is a big task. And even the rebel faction has no plan other than sharing the loaves of office with Vijay’s party.

Vijay Picks His Officers

Although the appointment of astrologer Rickey Radhan Pandit Vettrivel attracted adverse comments, forcing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Chandrasekaran Joseph Vijay to back track, his pick of officials for key assignments has come in for praise. The appointments are read as a sign that Vijay intends to monitor the functioning of key ministries and the autonomy of individual ministers, particularly with regard to fiscal matters. The new chief minister’s style of functioning may well be as different as his campaign where he did without a large party organisation, held only a limited number of rallies, and refused to hand out the usual pre-poll sops.

Centre’s Reform Push

Keen to do whatever is possible to ease the rules governing business, the Modi government has accelerated its bid to work on several reforms with state governments. The past six months have seen a significant degree of consensus on how to reduce the ‘last mile’ frictions in setting up and running businesses. The Centre is now looking at compliance measures that will signal a change of rules which will hopefully begin delivering results within the next six months to a year.

Fadnavis Advises NCP

Just as it appeared that things were settling down in NCP, there is fresh unrest in the party over the failure to name senior leaders Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare as office bearers in a list submitted to the election commission. This gave rise to speculation about cracks in NCP widening but Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis seems to be playing a role in calming the waters. His meeting with Parth Pawar, Rajya Sabha MP and elder son of Sunetra Pawar and late Ajit Pawar, is believed to have seen the chief minister offer advice on the need to keep NCP united.

Mane Issue

Reports that a Lashkare-Taiba terrorist who had infiltrated into Jammu & Kashmir from Pakistan spent his time getting hair transplant treatment had social media in splits. The terrorist who was recently arrested is hardly the sort of poster boy Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) would want as part of its ceaseless campaign to recruit and radicalise Indian youth. Mohammad Usman Jatt told investigators that he had found life in the Kashmir Valley very different from the tales of oppression fed by the ISI to terror recruits.

Team Trauma

As the fortunes of the IPL team Punjab Kings plummeted after a sizzling start, the franchise has been struggling to figure out what went wrong. Pacer Arshdeep Singh went public with a post on X pointing out that change of the home venue from Mullanpur to Dharamshala has not worked. He pleaded that the home venue should not be altered and that Dharamshala was like an ‘away’ ground. But that still did not explain why the team lost all three matches they played at a venue regarded as one of the finest in India. Former Aussie great and Punjab head coach Ricky Ponting must be scratching his head wondering how to instill basic discipline in a team that has lost its way.

General Advice

Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi’s frank talk on dealing with Pakistan’s support to terrorism against India was not mere rhetoric or military bluster. His remarks that Pakistan needs to weigh the costs of any act of terror that crosses India’s red lines is an iteration of the lessons of Operation Sindoor and a detailed analysis. A significant takeaway is that Pakistan does not have any strategic depth against an Indian air and missile attack and its capacity to launch air operations can be swiftly eroded. Added to this is the preparedness for land operations if the need arises. General Dwivedi’s words can be ignored at the peril of inviting nasty consequences.