Your Opinion

Its very refresing to see so many of you visiting this blog everyday catching up with news and commenting on the various postings. A sincere thanks to everyone. I taught this would be a good time for an opinion section. In this week section, I would like to know what you think will be the finally tally of the two major fronts the DPA (DMK, Congress, PMK, CPM, IUML, and CPI) and the DPF(ADMK, MDMK, DPI, and AIFB) in the elections. My personal prediction at this moment would be DPA – 140 and DPF – 90 seats. But I think the trend seems to favor the DPF at the moment and even a small swing (especially in a 2 front race) away from the DPA would mean a reversal in numbers? Your comments.

Personality Watch – MK Stalin

Last week I started the personality watch section were I promised to write about a personality each week who will influence the upcoming assembly election . This week I will write about MK Stalin, former Mayor of Chennai and son of DMK chief M Karunanidhi.

MK Stalin started out his political career in the youth wing of DMK. Slowly, he was elevated up the ranks and is presently severing as the deputy general secretary of the party. In 1996, Stalin was elected mayor of Chennai a post he held till 2001 which he was forced to relinquish because of the one man one post legislature brought by the ADMK government headed by Jayalalitha. A lot of the second line leadership of DMK today are considered close to Stalin. But the rise of Stalin within the DMK ranks hasn't been an easy one. In 1994, Vaiko launched a rebellion against Karunanidhi for promoting Stalin. In the 2001 assembly elections there was a lot of bickering within the DMK and even MK Azhagiri, another son of Karunanidhi, openly rebelled against party candidates close to Stalin. In fact, PTR Palanivel Rajan, the former speaker became a victim of this and lost what was supposed to be a safe seat in Madurai.

While, Stalin might not be able to match the charisma of Karunanidhi, he is quite adept at running the organization. During his tenure as Mayor, Stalin was able to keep DMK's presence within the Chennai city. During every election in the last decade, DMK has been able to draw on this to register impressive wins in Chennai.

In the upcoming elections, MK Stalin will continue to play an important role within the DMK. It is also possible that Stalin might have an outside chance of becoming Chief Minister. This largely depends on the number of seats DMK can muster. If they are very close to the majority mark you can bet Karunanidhi making way for his rising son.