How VCK won with big margins in Tamil Nadu LS polls when Dalit parties in other states drew a blank
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Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi won 2 seats while BSP drew a blank in UP & RPI(A) didn’t get to contest even a single seat in Maharashtra. Analysts say VCK tying up with INDIA bloc helped.
Chennai: Sometime in 1995, Thol Thirumavalavan, the then leader of the Dalit Panthers Movement, was seen on the streets of Tamil Nadu, aggressively protesting for the injustice against the Dalits.
It was at the same time, that the Ambedkarite leaders in other parts of India — Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh and Ramdas Athawale of Republican Party of India (Athawale) in Maharashtra — were signing papers at their state secretariats as chief minister and state cabinet minister in their state.
Cut to 2024, Mayawati’s BSP drew a blank this time and Athawale did not even get to contest a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections. On the other hand, Thol
Thirumavalavan’s Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) won in Chidambaram and Villupuram with a vote share of 2.25 percent.
With this, after 25 years since entering into the electoral foray, the party has gained the State party recognition. VCK would be the fifth political party in Tamil Nadu, after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Paatali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMDK) to earn the tag.
However, as PMK and DMDK have lost the recognition due to their past performances, VCK would be the third state party in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), which secured more than 8 percent of vote, is also likely to be recognised as a state party.
“At a time, when PMK and DMDK, who were recognised as a state party, have lost their recognition, a party that speaks of Ambedkarite ideology in South India, getting this recognition is historic. This movement is now being recognised as an organisation for all the people and it is a milestone in the 25 years of VCK’s journey,” Thol Thirumavalavan told ThePrint.
While the recognition of VCK is being welcomed as a gesture of acceptance by more common people than Dalits, Ambedkarite writers and researchers fear that its core idea of Dalit emancipation may be diluted in the future.
“There is fear that VCK might tone down their stance on Dalit issues, which might compromise on the interests of Dalits over the voter share of other castes” says writer Stalin Rajangam from Madurai, adding that in electoral politics, it may not be possible for once aggressive political movements to demonstrate the same kind of aggression.
But, VCK’s general secretary and MLA Sinthanai Selvan says that it cannot be considered as a compromise and that it could only be seen as a strategy to get the issue sorted through political power. “The ultimate aim is to attain political power without compromising on the ideology. Once you slowly start getting it, we can empower Dalits.”
The VCK traces its origin way back to 1982 when the Dalits Panther Iyakkam (DPI) was formed as a Tamil Nadu wing of Bharatiya Dalit Panthers (BDP). Political activist A. Malaichamy led the outfit, and Thirumavalavan joined it in 1988 while he was working in the forensic department in Madurai. After the demise of Malaichamy in 1989, Thirumavalavan was elected as the leader of DPI.
After nine years of groundwork in Madurai and the surrounding area, he founded a political party named VCK, inspired by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.
Rejecting the Sanskritised names, in line with the Ambedkarite and Tamil nationalist ideology, Thirumavalavan renamed his father’s birthname Ramasamy into Tholkappiar after the author of Tholkappiam, an ancient extant Tamil literature, at a party conference in 2002.
Courtesy : The Print
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