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Views from the other      side Thus goes the Congress The silence of Dr Singh Left behind The price of idiocy

The battle for Fort St George and Fort William

They are two old men. Their foes are two middle-aged women. Their successors are not really battle-tested. And this might be the last time they shall lead their troops into battle. That, in a nutshell, is what is going on in Fort St George and Fort William -- two of the first British settlements in India, known today as Chennai and Kolkata.

The careers of Muthuvel Karunanidhi and Jyoti Basu have run in a curious parallel. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam came into power in Chennai in 1967. Chief Minister Annadurai's deputy and clearly the man for the future was Karunanidhi. Since then, whether in or out of power, the man and his party have always been a factor in Tamil Nadu politics.

In the same historic year of 1967, a non-Congress coalition ministry took office in Kolkata. Ajoy Mukherjee was the chief minister; his deputy was a young Marxist called Jyoti Basu. As in Chennai, nobody in West Bengal has been able to ignore Basu since.

Thirty-four years, over a third of a century, later, these two old men are clearly in the winter of their political life. Jyoti Basu has relinquished his post as chief minister after an unbroken stint of twenty-three years. Few would wager that Karunanidhi will finish a full five-year term even if he succeeds in leading the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam back to power. Now, both these pioneers of non-Congress governments are wondering if they can end their long careers with one last victory.

I for one believe that they have every reason to worry. Let us begin with examining the situation in Chennai.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which came into power, railing against dynastic rule, is currently a leading proponent of the same system. His party colleagues are convinced that the chief minister is hellbent on making his son, M Stalin, his heir. Stalin has already been made the mayor of Chennai; now he is supposed to be having the last word when it comes to giving out tickets. The unhappiness in the party is quite clear; Thamizhkudimagan, a member of the Karunanidhi ministry, has left the party and joined the AIADMK as a mark of protest.

The former minister is in good company. In a matter of weeks, the coalition formed by Karunanidhi in 1999 has started falling apart. The PMK has decided that Jayalalitha is a better bet; the MDMK has not gone that far as I write, but a coalition with the lady is on the cards. One must remember that both the PMK and the MDMK were members of her coalition until 1999.

People in Delhi are already beginning to speculate whether the lady would not like to have another old ally on her side again -- the Bharatiya Janata Party. I understand that there is little chance of that happening, but stranger things have happened in politics.

Up to a couple of weeks ago, for instance, the Congress party was damning the PMK for its pro-LTTE stance. Then it agreed to be in the same electoral front. And today it has agreed to join a government along with the PMK!

Again, who could have thought that the Left Front would be under siege in its citadel of West Bengal? Kerala has traditionally seesawed between the Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front, but the CPI-M has always returned to power in Bengal. And that happy situation seemed embedded in concrete when Mamta Banerjee defected from the Congress party. After all, a party that could not beat the Left Front while united could not do so when divided, right?

Mathematics would say so, but politics is about emotions as well. Mamta Banerjee's revolt suddenly led West Bengal to realise that there could be an alternative to the bullies in the Marxist camp. The newly-created Trinamul Congress won over a quarter of the votes in the last Lok Sabha election; with the parent Congress it won a little more than the CPI-M.

But is that enough? The Marxists are not fighting alone; their allies -- the CPI, the RSP, and the Forward Bloc -- could give it the edge over the Congress-Trinamul combination. It would have been a different story had Mamta Banerjee carried the Bharatiya Janata Party along -- the three parties together polled over 50 per cent in 1999, an unbeatable number. However, Mamta Banerjee chose otherwise and must now accept the consequences. (Oddly enough, the Trinamul Congress continues to accept the Bharatiya Janata Party as an ally in various local bodies, including the Kolkata municipality.)

If you ask me, I believe Jayalalitha has the better chance of the two ladies. She has been assiduously wooing allies -- not just the PMK and the MDMK, but even Moopanar's Tamil Maanila Congress. She has the advantage of knowing that Stalin is unpopular with a section of his own party. And of course there is the anti-incumbency factor.

The incumbent government in West Bengal is not very popular -- Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya lacks the aura of his predecessor. But the CPI-M has been in power since 1977; its cadre is well-trained and every rung of the administration is stuffed with Left Front sympathisers. Rigging and booth-capturing were not unknown in West Bengal in the last elections!

Finally, as noted above, while Jayalalitha has been making allies, Mamta Banerjee has taken a different route. And the CPI-M knows that the Congress, like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is a house divided.

Who will win? I would prefer to wait until all these parties come to a decision about who their allies are. But one thing is certain: one-party rule is ending in both Chennai and Kolkata no matter who wins.

T V R Shenoy