With Senthil Balaji's arrest, TN politics heading for direct DMK-BJP fight

By Arun Lakshman
Chennai, June 18 The arrest of Tamil Nadu minister and powerful leader from Karur, Senthil Balaji by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the public response of Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin that the DMK could not be cowed by using agencies has led to a direct fight between the DMK and the BJP.

Senthil Balaji has been arrested in a case related to the job for cash scam when he was serving as a transport minister in the 2011-16, cabinet of Jayalalithaa. Balaji, who was with the AIADMK then, had switched stands to DMK. He was made a minister in the M.K. Stalin government and allocated important portfolios of Electricity, Excise and Prohibition.

The arrest of Senthil Balaji, who is considered very close to the Chief Minister and one of the pointsman of the party in Western Tamil Nadu, led to Stalin directly intervening and openly retorting against the BJP and the central agencies.

Stalin in a video message said that DMK is a political party which cannot be subdued or forced to submission as it had seen several such tough acts earlier and had come out of that. The Chief Minister also said that if the DMK retorts, then the BJP will not be able to withstand it.

True to his words, the DMK government has started a crackdown and the BJP state secretary S.G. Suryah was arrested on a complaint by the CPI(M) Madurai district committee that he had deliberately posted messages in social media against the party MP from Madurai, Su Venkatesan.

The BJP leader had posted that a conservancy worker was forced by a CPI(M) councillor of Madurai to clean sewage and that the Dalit woman worker died due to this.

However, CPI(M) in a statement said that there was no such incident and that no one had died and the BJP leader had posted fake information. The BJP leader was immediately taken into custody and then produced before a judicial magistrate court that remanded him for two weeks judicial custody.

BJP national leaders, including Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and party national general secretary (organisation), B.L. Santhosh came out strongly against the arrest of S.G. Suryah.

Santosh said that the BJP is a political party that has fought against Emergency and will not be subdued by police highhandedness and political vendetta. He also said that Stalin has not come out of the shock over the arrest of Senthil Balaji.

AIADMK Erode district IT cell functionary, Gowtham (24) was arrested on Friday night for allegedly spreading and posting defamatory information against Chief Minister Stalin on social media platforms.

According to police, he had received a video that portrayed false information about the Chief Minister. He had made certain changes on the video and later circulated it which went viral. The video was about Stalin as an opposition leader lashing out against Senthil Balaji who was then in the AIADMK.

The AIADMK general secretary and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) came out strongly against the arrest of the AIADMK functionary. The former Chief Minister said that if the trend of taking false cases against AIADMK office-bearers continues, then the party will have to take legal action against the concerned police officers.

It may be noted that ever since former IPS officer of Karnataka cadre, K. Annamalai was anointed as the state president of the BJP, there have been continuous fights between the DMK and the BJP.

Annamalai had even brought out certain corruption allegations against the DMK leadership including Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin. However, the fight between the two reached a flash point after the arrest of the Tamil Nadu Minister Senthil Balaji.

It has to be seen how the state would go forward if a fight is taking place between the political parties that are ruling the state and the Centre.

With the preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections already commenced and with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister calling on the DMK cadres to win all the 39 seats from the state and one from the Union Territory of Puducherry, the fight between the BJP and the DMK is to escalate in the days to come.

Dr R. Krishnaswamy, retired professor of political science from a government college at Madurai while speaking to said, "Stalin has to keep the tempo against the BJP to cater to his support base and the tough response of the Chief Minister could be due to the fact that there is a possibility of central agencies again swooping down on senior leaders of the DMK.

"The DMK is also expecting further actions from the central agencies and it knows that in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, there could be further action from the central agencies."