Master of medium and message

Madurai: "There's no split in the family, we are united, our one and only aim is to dislodge the Anna DMK [Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam], win this election and win it hands down," says federal minister Dayanidhi Maran.

He displays no sign of the much discussed split in the Karunanidhi clan when one finally catches up with the central minister for IT after several hours of campaigning after sundown just outside the temple town of Madurai.

He also denies there is any truth to allegations raised by former ally V. Kopalasami, or Vaiko, leader of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, that as IT minister he had threatened Ratan Tata, who heads the Tata group over a telecom deal.

"I can't comment on that except to say it isn't true, that this will be decided in court, and that I'm taking Vaiko to court," he says as he trains his guns on Vaiko.

"Who takes that man seriously any more? He's discredited himself completely in the eyes of the people. If you look at the recent surveys, it says the people have lost confidence in him, his defection is not an issue for us at all, it's an issue for him. He was once seen as a leader with potential in the state, even a national leader, and now if it's not centre-stage, it's not state, but a street-side speaker.

"All I can say when he raises these kind of issues is why was he silent all these years, what was he doing? Look what he has reduced himself to."

Maran is in distinctive garb, western style shirt tucked into trousers, as opposed to the dhoti of the others, relentlessly driving home the point that he is a politician with a difference.

In the two years that he has been in politics, this is his first independent foray at campaigning without the stalwarts of the DMK by his side.

Impeccable Tamil notwithstanding, his speeches lack the fire and brimstone of the veteran Muthuvel Karunanidhi. But clearly given the tittering women in the audience who compared his light skin to a "rosa poo" or a rose, he has developed his own fan following.

Amid speculation it is a done deal, that Karunanidhi divested himself of his family's share of the media conglomerate Sun TV [on paper he is said to have paid far less than what has actually been given] in return for the Maran boys' blessing for Karunanidhi's son K. Stalin's leadership, is the addendum that Karunanidhi could have miscalculated.

There is no way his nephews can be reined in. The duo are sons of his brother-in-law, the former central Commerce Minister, the brilliant Murasoli Maran who married his sister; the older nephew, Kalanidhi is a savvy media tycoon, the younger Dayanidhi, baby-faced tactician, is both his uncle's trusted eyes and ears in Delhi and Congress chieftain Sonia Gandhi's man in Tamil Nadu.

But in rural India, the media is the message, and while Karunanidhi only has Tamil newspaper Murasoli and the English weekly Rising Sun to drive his point of view home, the Marans have Sun TV, which so far has held back from criticising the DMK leader or his policies. They need each other as a vehicle to catapult themselves to power. The time to watch the Maran brothers is when the transition of power from father to son happens.

Talking to Gulf News, the high profile nephew of the man he refers to as "leader" stresses he is "a loyal foot soldier of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's" electoral campaign machinery, unleashed to dislodge Jayalalitha, reigning queen of Tamil Nadu.

"We need every able-bodied man on board to dislodge her. But I can sense the pulse of the people, there's a definite wave, a groundswell against her. We are going to sweep this election, we'll win at least 205 seats minimum out of the 234."

He says: "The AIADMK is nervous. The lady is rattled, desperate. How else do you explain the 10kg free rice offer. What stopped her from distributing free rice when she was in power? Why now? Why couldn't she get jobs for all like she's promising now. And she's changing her strategy, stepping out of her ivory tower and meeting people after we showed how different our campaign was from hers. At the end of the day, the public will ask questions."

His party he says is not about "making promises, but delivering them".

But the DMK is offering free televisions, and two-rupee-a-kilo rice schemes too? Will these be implemented? "The people are starving. After successive droughts, there are starvation deaths, we must provide for the people."

As for television, "it's an educative tool, it's the fastest method of getting the message to the people,"says Dayanidhi Maran, master of the medium and the message.