Why Chidambarams need Sivaganga now more than ever

The candidature of Karti Chidambaram from Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga constituency, which had been a stronghold of his father and veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram, is least surprising because what he needs the most at the moment is political protection.

The BJP-led NDA government has been after him over alleged corruption and money-laundering cases for the last two years and has even sent him to Tihar jail for a few weeks.

Although this is not the first time that Karti is trying his luck in parliamentary politics, this time around, he may find success since there are strong indications that the DMK-Congress front is likely to sweep the polls. In the last elections, he could get just about 10 per cent of the votes from the same constituency while his main rival from the AIADMK won four times more in a four-cornered contest. This time around, he will be fighting against H Raja of the BJP-AIADMK alliance who bagged more votes than him in 2014.  It will be a pretty straightforward contest that Karti has to indeed win given his circumstances.

The last couple of years have been tough for the Chidambaram junior because the BJP, or rather the central government, has been bent upon getting him behind bars. There were newspaper reports about alleged illegal assets overseas, cases by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate accusing him of graft and money laundering, and even a remand jail term. Interestingly, it’s exactly a year since he came out on bail after a three-week-plus judicial custody and even now, his only protection against a re-arrest is a bail that expires today (March 25).  In fact, it’s not just him, but also Chidambaram, who is facing arrest by the CBI and the ED that have been held back by a Delhi court order.

Karti has been accused of laundering money and acquiring assets overseas, besides gaining wealth illegally for official favours provided by his father. While both Chidambaram and Karti have vehemently denied any wrongdoing, with even the latter challenging the ED to take away all his alleged overseas assets, the government both through its agencies and political leaders have been accusing the son-father duo of corruption. Other than the oft-repeated charges by the CBI and ED, the specific details of the cases are still murky and it’s not clear if there’s indeed a genuine case or it’s a rancorous political witch-hunt as alleged by the Chidambarams.

Anyway, while it remains to be seen if Karti will have to go to jail again should he fail to get a fresh extension of the bail or some other relief, this election will be a shot in the arm for him and the family. Parliamentary privilege will add an additional layer of protection in case the BJP comes back to power, a prospect that he or his father wouldn’t appreciate.

According to media reports, Karti’s last minute candidature was an exception that the Congress high command has made to its earlier policy decision not to field any sons, daughters or spouses of its leaders. Probably, the party believes that what Karti faces is a proxy attack by the BJP against Chidambaram, one of the toughest and brightest Congress leaders. In the past two years since the government first moved against the father-son duo, there hasn’t been any major headway except conjectures, charges, media leaks and a testimony by a murder accused in jail. Probably, the party thinks it owes Chidambaram at least this, if not more. He has been its spearhead in taking on the BJP, particularly on the economy, which has been the Achilles heel for the latter.

After the demise of GK Moopanar,  who once was a tall national leader, the erudite and politically astute Chidamabaram has been the face of the Congress in Tamil Nadu since the 2000s. And he is an extremely important man for the Congress, both as a politician and as a leader of its think-tank.

Since 1985, when he first became a minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet, Chidambaram has gained progressively rising prominence in the party and the Congress-led governments reaching his high point during the 2004-2014 UPA regimes. Apart from Dr Manmohan Singh, some of the smart decisions taken by Congress-led governments are credited to him. Sivaganga has been a safe-spot for him since 1984 except in 1999, when he was in a local breakaway faction of the Congress called the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). Three years earlier, he had won from the same constituency on a TMC ticket in an election that the DMK-TMC alliance won. In 2014, he didn’t contest and instead fielded his son who came fourth behind the BJP.

Unlike many national leaders who are hailed for their intellect and technical prowess, Chidambaram has never left grassroots politics. He knows where to focus when and, hence, has a strong political constituency within the Congress in Tamil Nadu, despite its inherent factionalism. He knows the pulse of the people and has his ears to the ground and, hence, is one of the most valuable assets of the party, both nationally and regionally. This, despite his apparent high-handedness that occasionally grabs news headlines. Karti is much less endowed in comparison, but the tough traits of his father are indeed unmissable in him too.

Not that a win in Sivaganga will offer Karti a blanket cover, but political validation and people’s mandate will indeed provide considerable confidence in taking on the BJP, in case it comes back to power.