The Predicate

I had written in the earlier section that the agenda for this election was set more by the politicians than by public opinion. This resulted in several important questions that went unasked and unanswered. These were the questions that needed to be asked, but unfortunately didn't get any time in this campaign.

1. The Srilankan Conundrum: With the escalating power struggle in Sri Lanka, what is going to happen in Tamilnadu? Will TN become a free passage for arms and supplies to the LTTE if DMK comes to power? What are the parties' position on refugees? What are the parties' position on LTTE? Did people forget the Padmanabha/Rajiv Gandhi killings?

2. The Cauvery issue: What will the parties do on the Cauvery issue (other than funding the actors all the way to Neyveli to cut off the power to Karnataka)? What was DMK's position on how the ADMK government handled the Cauvery issue? What would the DMK have done differently?

3. Past performance of the Karunanidhi Government: Surely, it was not all land of milk and honey when DMK was in power. Still, the performance of Karunanidhi governments, especially the one in the 90s went unquestioned. Karunanidhi had a field day talking about the ADMK manifesto and how much of it the ADMK government actually fulfilled. But, how about DMK? In the '96 elections, how many items that Karunanidhi promised did he actually deliver? As far as I saw, the only reference to past DMK governments was to the "roobaikku 3 padi arisi" promise some 35 years ago.

4. Government workers: I think the bulk of the people who are NOT government workers, would have supported the measures Jayalalitha took, to make the workers more efficient and accountable. The government employees got a jolt of their lives. Apparently, the complacency in the govt offices was reduced a lot due to JJ's actions. If this was the case, why was there not a call to do more of this? To make the govt more accountable and reduce the bureaucracy?

5. TV Campaigns: There is a limit set by the Election Commission on how much each candidate can spend. What about the propaganda on the rival television channels? Who pays for all that? How is it accounted? Does this kind of "soft contributions" go unaudited? The amount of political campaigning done in Sun and Jaya TV are unbelievable. A tamil new year kaviyarangam was a call to vote for DMK. Even in the Sun TV news, the "sonnadhu yaar" segment featured pro-DMK quotes!

6. Who killed Tha.Krishnan? What will the position of Communists/Congress either side of the border be on the Mullah Periyar Dam? How many people were actually arrested during the time the "Anti-forced conversions law" was in effect? Was that law misused, did it stop communal clashes? How was the ADMK government's performance on clamping down on the safety of schools after the Kumbakonam fire accident?