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AIADMK grabs Pondy statehood stick to beat BJP with

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

With the Centre promising early statehood for Delhi, a similar demand has been raked up all over again in the case of another Union territory, Pondicherry in the south. And forgetting for once their internecine squabbles and internal differences, various political parties in Pondicherry, and their parent organisations in adjoining Tamil Nadu, have raised their combined voice.

"Both Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani had promised to grant statehood for Pondicherry when we raised the issue with them recently," Dravida Munnetra Kazagham member T R Baalu told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. "But there is no mention of Pondicherry in the recent announcements by the Centre, creating three new states and granting early statehood to Delhi.'

What should have surprised onlookers was the promptness with which All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham parliamentary party leader Sedapatti R Muthiah and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham chief Vaiko reacted to Baalu's statement. Though forming the two other corners of the political triangle back home, both backed the demand in their own way, though Baalu seemed to feel that as partners in the ruling coalition, the other two were trying to snatch away the cause from the DMK.

For a tiny speck of 492 sq km, that too in four pockets, Pondicherry has had a chequered history. A French settlement since the days of the French East India Company in 1673, the Union territory now comprises mainland Pondicherry, the seat of the Union territory government, 162 km south of Madras, Karaikal, deep south on the eastern coast in Tamil Nadu, Mahe on the western coast of Kerala, and Yanam, again on the eastern coast, but well inside Andhra Pradesh.

Naturally, the lingua franca comprises Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu, not to mention English and French. Even today, there are French pensioners and French citizens voting for elections in distant France, ever since Paris handed over the what was once the refuge for Indian freedom-fighters, to New Delhi in November 1957.

Though the demand for statehood has been there almost since inception, nothing has been achieved on that front, despite the Union territory with a lone Lok Sabha member producing a Union minister twice. Aravida Bala Pazhanoor of the AIADMK was the controversial petroleum and chemicals minister in the short-lived Charan Singh ministry, as one of the first two nominees of any Dravidian party at the Centre. Former Pondicherry Chief Minister M O H Farook, a 'home-comer' from the DMK, was a minister of state for a while in P V Narasimha Rao's Congress ministry, later.

Nor have reports and studies done much. The Centre did appoint a committee to study the feasibility of making Pondicherry a separate state. But nothing has been done in years, though the team's report was favourable.

In between though, the greatest disservice for the cause was done by the late Morarji Desai as prime minister. He was on record that small states like Pondicherry would not be viable and stable, and should be merged with Tamil Nadu, just as Goa should be annexed to Maharashtra. It is another matter that Goa is now a separate state.

The demand may take a serious turn this time round, what with the AIADMK alliance waiting for any opportunity that could embarrass its coalition leader at Delhi. "We cannot let go off our long-standing demand, particularly when the BJP leadership has remembered Delhi, but ignored Pondicherry," says a leader of the Pattali Makkal Katchi ally of the AIADMK with a substantial vote bank from its traditionally-strong Venniar community in mainland Pondicherry and in adjoining Tamil Nadu districts.

For his part, DMK Chief Minister V N Janakiraman led an all-party delegation to Delhi, and represented their demand to then prime minister I K Gujral. But nothing obviously was done. Given the unique nature of coalition politics in the Union territory, where the DMK-TMC combine is in power now, the AIADMK and the Congress have started embarrassing the rulers of the day, but separately.

Indications are that the AIADMK will add Pondicherry to its long list of demands now before the Centre. "If the Centre then grants statehood to Pondicherry, they can show it off as their victory. But if they fail, then it can be used against the BJP leadership," says a TMC leader, whose party also passed a lengthy resolution in this regard earlier last week. TMC leader P Chidambaram also recalled a meeting he had with the prime minister in this regard some time back.

With different parties speaking a different tone, and no co-ordination possible given the political angularities, the current phase of the struggle, if it could be termed as such, is not without its own share of relief. In Delhi, Muthiah said that all members of the Union territory assembly had offered to quit, to press the demand. But nearer home in Pondicherry, the AIADMK secretary in the Union territory, K Natarajan, MLA, said they would fight for statehood without resigning from the assembly.

The resignation question became relevant when Congress MLAs, if only to outsmart the TMC on its resolution, submitted their resignation letters to party president Sonia Gandhi. The party high command doesn't seem to favour their resignation, and they seem to be in no mood to oblige critics who want them to send in their papers to the assembly secretariat, directly.

Says Natarajan, the AIADMK legislator: "Our chief Jayalalitha has promised to take up the issue with the prime minister when she meets him next, and we are sure that she will be able to obtain statehood for Pondicherry." If that's the hope and expectation of the AIADMK, that's also the anxiety of the DMK, the TMC and the Congress.

EARLIER REPORT:
9 MLAs quit, demand statehood

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