Although there was a partial recovery in Bihar and U.P. even after 1977 when the Congress could not win a single seat, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have since gone out of its reach. While the prospects West Bengal have now become brighter, there are signs in Tamil Nadu that the people are no longer as enamoured of the two Dravidian parties as before.

As the AIADMK's defeat, including the personal defeat of the MDMK's Vaiko who was in Jayalalithaa's camp, shows, the intense focus on local politics is no longer paying dividends. Otherwise, Vaiko's attempts to whip up Tamil sentiments by threatening a blood bath if Prabhakaran was killed would not have failed to create a single ripple. The AIADMK's failure to cash in on the anti-incumbency factor was also significant if only because it underlined Jayalalithaa's fading appeal. The DMK's inability to get a majority on its own in the last assembly election was also an indication of the popular dissatisfaction with Tamil Nadu politics being reduced to a choice between the two Kazhagams.

These are not the only reasons, however, why the Congress has a chance. A more potent factor is the evident degeneration of the calibre of the Kazhagam leaders, which is undoubtedly responsible for the AIADMK's failure this time and the DMK's need to align with the Congress to be in power. Nothing quite showed the ethical decline among the leaders than the sordid drama which the DMK played in Chennai and New Delhi at the time of the cabinet formation.

The rest of India witnessed for the first time the curious spectacle of an 85-year man in a wheel chair arriving with no less than two wives and a gaggle of relatives to bargain for ministerial positions. The scene brought no glory either to the grasping politicos or the state itself, once famed for producing men like the mathematician Ramanujan, a statesman like Rajagopalachari, a philosopher like Radhakrishnan, a scientist like C.V. Raman and politicians like Periyar, Annadurai and Kamaraj. It is obvious that the present breed of “leaders” cannot hold a candle to these stalwarts.

Even before the swearing-in, the favourite topic of discussion where Tamil Nadu was concerned was the unsavoury record of ministers like T.R. Baalu, A. Raja and A Ramadoss in the last cabinet. Where Baalu was accused of virtually stalling the national highways project after its successes under the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, Raja was caught in a telecom scam and Ramadoss for pursuing a personal agenda against the then director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

But their palpable inadequacies had no impact on Karunanidhi. He insisted on their accommodation in the ministry along with his son, M.K. Azhagiri, and daughter, Kanimozhi. It is another matter that not all his egregious demands could be met. But his basic objective of promoting his kith and kin became all the more evident when his younger son, M.K. Stalin, was nominated as the deputy chief minister to pave the way for his succession in Tamil Nadu. There is little doubt that the people of the state could not have felt pleased with the DMK's pathetic reduction into a family firm. With Karunanidhi in his twilight years, it is also clear that the party has no leader who can play an inspirational role in the future.

This is the right time, therefore, for the Congress to make its presence felt in the state. The disillusionment with the Kazhagams cannot but lead to the voters turning to a national party, which has evidently gained a new lease of life after its setbacks in the Nineties. The Congress has a not insubstantial share of votes in the state. It has even risen from 14.4 per cent in 2004 to 15 this time although its number of seats has dropped by two.

What was noteworthy, however, was the dramatic drop in the AIADMK's percentages from 29.7 in 2004 to 22.8. Much of this swing seems to have gone to the “others” whose vote share has risen from 31.2 per cent five years ago to 37 in 2009 although their number of seats has fallen from 13 to four. The DMK's percentages (like the Congress's) have remained static - 24.6 in 2004 and 25.1 this year. So, evidently, some kind of a churning is taking place.

Since the others, made up of minor players like the PMK and the MDMK, cannot expect to play anything other than a subsidiary role, and since the DMK's reputation is suffering, this is the ideal time for the Congress to try to repeat in Tamil Nadu what it achieved in UP. (IPA Service)