All the shrewd moves of Mr Karunanidhi over the last two decades to keep his elder son Mr M K Alagiri (63), till recently Union Minister for Fertilisers, tied to the Southern region, so as to ensure a smooth transition in leadership of the party to his younger son, Mr M K Stalin (60),the party treasurer, have come to nought.

However, Mr Stalin, with his politicl acumen and greater command over the party, retains the upper hand at this stage. Even as the war of words within the family is on and a series of disciplinary actions have been taken against Alagiri supporters, no other credible alliance of parties outside the major Dravidian rivals, AIADMK and DMK, has taken shape as yet.

The Congress looks isolated in Tamil Nadu, DMK having rejected any move to revive the old alliance. Ideally, it could have taken the initiative to work with the third Dravidian force, DMDK of Captain Vijaykant, now the leading opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. For some reason or other, this does not seem to be happening till now.

On the other hand, the BJP in Tamil Nadu led by Mr Pon Radhakrishnan, coming out of its relative seclusion, is vigorously trying for a new front, emboldened by Mr Narendra Modi’s foray in the South. It is confident of two Dravidian state parties - Mr Vaiko’s MDMK and Dr Ramadoss’ PMK aligning with it as they want to bag a few seats for themselves.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Radhakrishnan’s hopes of also roping in the ‘big fish’, Captain Vijaykant’s DMDK, with whom preliminary talks have been held, will materialise. DMDK, which had a 10 per cent polling in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, later enlarged its base in the 2011 state elections winning 29 seats, displacing DMK with 23 seats, to become the leading opposition in T N Assembly.

DMDK has therefore been most sought after by major parties other than ruling AIADMK. On the Congress side, Union Shipping Minister Mr. G K Vasan had met Captain Vijaykant some time ago on a personal level. The Captain has been non-committal amid overtures also from DMK and BJP and has said he would reveal his party’s stand on an alliance at DMDK’s state conference at Villupuram on February 2.

Apparently he was not enthusiastic about aligning with DMK though there were no formal talks between the two parties. Mr Karunanidhi and other DMK leaders seemed upset with Mr Alagiri also because pf certain adverse remarks reportedly made by Mr Alagiri against aligning with DMDK, which they thought ruined the prospects of Capt. Vijaykant making common cause with Mr Karunanidhi.

While DMK-DMDK parleys had not taken off at any level. Current indications are the Captain’s willingness to consider an alliance with BJP if it would be led by his party, being the strongest after AIADMK in terms of Assembly representation though its polling percentage might be lower than that of DMK. Also, DMDK will claim a larger share of seats as the leading party.

This is the line favoured by DMDK general membership and has left the decision to their leader, Capt. Vijaykant. BJP would like to augment the National Democratic Alliance through the alliance it is working for in the state and thus help enhance the chances for Mr Narendra Modi in his bid to become the Prime Minister. But on what terms it would settle for an alliance with DMDK is not clear at present.

Recently, Capt. Vijaykant’s DMDK had reportedly offered to support Mr G K Vasan, whose tenure in the Rajya Sabha ends in April but DMK was not willing to back him and had put up its own candidate. Thus, of the six seats in Rajya Sabha that fall vacant, AIADMK bagged four and extended support to CPI(M) candidate Mr T K Rangarajan for the 5th seat while the sixth went in favour of DMK nominee Mr T N Siva.

The Congress had thought DMK would support Mr Vasan’s re-nomination to Rajya Sabha by way of reciprocating the Congress support which enabled Mr Karunanidhi’s daughter Ms. Kanimozhi to get re-elected to Rajya Sabha on an earlier occasion. Without a strong local party like DMDK, the Congress may get barely a few seats.

A newcomer to the Tamil Nadu political scene is the Aam Aadmi Party of Mr Arvind Kejriwal and one of its leaders Mr Prashant Bhushan in his two visits to Chennai ruled out any poll pact for the Lok Sabha seats AAP may decide to contest in Tamil Nadu. There can be no understanding with DMK or AIADMK as both were ‘”corrupt” and neglected “real issues” of the people and his party offered an alternative, Mr Bhushan said.

Congressmen in Tamil Nadu, hopelessly divided into factions led by Mr P Chidambaram, who has nurtured his own constituency Sivaganga with development schemes and opening a maximum number of bank branches, and by Mr G K Vasan, who heads the dominant group but the party cannot stand on its own legs in the Lok Sabha elections. Congressmen may be hoping a visit or two by Mr Rahul Gandhi could galvanise the party to make some gains.

The in-fighting in Karunanidhi family threatens to be a long drawn-out affair, despite the electoral compulsions. Mr Alagiri first fought with his father over the expulsions of his supporters in Madurai and later, as quarrels intensified, he himself faced suspension and threatened with expulsion.

But his conditional birthday offer of compromise with the party high command involving the revival of the Madurai Unit of the party and revoking the suspension of his supporters did not evoke any immediate response from his father or from Mr Stalin. MPs supporting Mr Alagiri feel that actions taken against Mr Alagiri and his supporters would “seriously affect the party” in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Ms. Jayalalithaa, unperturbed by the apex court ruling that she should face trial for non-filing of a tax return in 1990s, whatever the reasons, has called on her party cadres to work hard to make it a 40/40 victory (40 seats for T N and Puducherry in Lok Sabha). With the DMK first family feuds, Ms. Jayalalithaa charged Mr Karunanidhi with using the party and its position at the Centre for long years only to benefit his family. She did not rule out DMK reverting to work with Congress, if Mr. Karunanidhi could not forge an alliance with the smaller parties. On her own, the AIADMK supremo has sealed her party’s alliance with the Left for the Lok Sabha elections – thereby projecting her as the leader of the proposed Third Front. (IPA Service)