The Tamilnadu circus.

The Tamilnadu circus has come to a pause, not to a halt with the swearing in ceremony of Palanisamy. The drama that is unfolded ever since OPS broke his silence by saying that he was forced to resign and still in the race for Chief ministership has reached a temporary pause. The developments in the run up to the big event only cast a dark shadow of the money, muscle and mafia power that was in full play much to the chagrin of all the saner elements. These incidents have thrown enormous challenge to democracy and its institutions and raised questions about their efficacy in safeguarding the interests of the subjects. Governance and delivery are far fetched items to expect from these netas.

Politics is about public perception. And the public perception was undoubtedly is against Sasikala and her gang coming to power. In fact there was a groundswell of support for OPS to take the reins. It is not that MLAs doesn't knew this. They know pretty well of this fact. Despite this they struck to Sasikala camp. The money, muscle and power kept these MLAs together despite strong public resentment. And this unity among the MLAs came at a time when Sasikala was convicted and jailed and barred from contesting elections for a period of ten years in DA case by the top court cannot be lost sight of. Supreme Court has to be congratulated and thanked for its decisive and path breaking judgement against corruption though it took 20 long years to dispense the justice.

The narrative of the Tamilnadu is a sad commentary of the degeneration of the polity and an abysmally low point it has reached. This perhaps calls for urgent electoral reforms on a warfoot basis.

What is most disturbing is the fact that, while the money power played so blatantly to manoeuvre and manipulate so glaringly before the entire nation, the system could do nothing and the nation was a mute spectator.

And many say it is only an interval in the drama. And the drama continues.

K.N.Krishnan.