Chennai: From impromptu interactions with vendors and those from the neighbourhood at Chennai’s Mylapore market and answering the queries of women from rural households in Kanchipuram on LPG prices, to speaking in Tamil in Lok Sabha, Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman is emerging as the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Tamil Nadu — a state where the party is still trying to find its footing, and change its “anti-Tamil party” image, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In Parliament on 10 August, while countering Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Kanimozhi’s reference of the disrobing Draupadi (in the epic Mahabharata), in the context of violence against women in Manipur, Sitharaman broke into Tamil to corner the opposition party. The Union finance minister referred to the Tamil Nadu state assembly ruckus of 1989, where AIADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa was reportedly attacked, as DMK leaders allegedly looked on, an accusation denied by the latter.
This year, Sitharaman has already been to Tamil Nadu six times, said the BJP’s state unit, the latest being a visit on 5 August, to inaugurate a museum in Thoothukudi.
She was also in the state on 4 April to launch BJP’s wall-to-wall campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and on 25 May, to talk about the significance of the sengol to be placed in the new Parliament. On 30 June, she handed out job offers under a rozgar mela (employment fair) held there.
Speaking to ThePrint, state BJP vice-president Narayanan Thirupathy added that Sitharaman is aware of the developments in the state and locals are more comfortable confiding in her as she can connect with them in Tamil.
“During her visits to Tamil Nadu, she has had meetings with representatives of the cracker industry, matchbox industry, tea estate workers in Nilgiris, textile industry representatives from Tirupur. They have shared their concerns and issues with the minister and she has been working towards addressing their grievances,” he said.
Thirupathy added: “She has a clear understanding of Tamil Nadu politics and what is happening here.”
According to political analyst Sumanth C. Raman, however, when it comes to state politics, Sitharaman is not a “mass leader”, though she can be seen as the BJP’s voice from Tamil Nadu in Parliament.
There are three Tamil-speaking ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government — Sitharaman, Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar, and Minister of State (MoS) for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying and for Information and Broadcasting, Dr L. Murugan (also the TN BJP state president between 2020 and 2021).
None of them are elected members of Parliament, but were nominated there, said author and fellow at Chennai’s Roja Muthiah Research Library A.S. Panneerselvan, pointing out, however, that as an MoS, Murugan does not have much of a say in Parliament.
Panneerselvan further told ThePrint that “Jaishankar is not too comfortable speaking in Tamil. He is one of those anglicised professionals and is not too articulate in Tamil. Given that, Nirmala’s articulation is what the BJP has to depend on in Parliament.”
ThePrint reached Nirmala Sitharaman on call and text messages, but received no response till the time of publication of this report. The article will be updated as and when a response is received.
According to the finance minister’s biographical details on a government website, Sitharaman was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, in a Brahmin family. She did her schooling and graduation in Tiruchirappalli, following it up with post-graduation studies at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Only the second woman in the country to hold the finance portfolio in the Union government, after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Sitharaman is the “pride of the state”, according to members of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit.
ThePrint also reached members in ally All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) camp and in rival DMK, for comment on Sitharaman’s connect in the state, but received no response till the time of publication of this report.
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BJP’s Tamil voice in Parliament
During her visit to Tamil Nadu in August, to lay the foundation stone for a museum at Thoothukudi, Sitharaman, while responding to queries on the Manipur issue, lashed out at the Opposition in Tamil.
Countering DMK MP Kanimozhi’s remark asking the BJP to read the Silappadhikaram (Tamil epic) during the no-confidence motion in the monsoon session of Parliament, Sitharaman said, “Those in Tamil Nadu understand PM Modi’s ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’. But here, they want to do politics.”
She added: “According to Silappadhikaram, the cultural habits and practices in form can have slight differences but they (Dravidians and non-Dravidians) are not opposite to each other. There is oneness, India’s oneness as told in Silappadhikaram.”
“This is not the first time such incidents have happened in Manipur. It is saddening but when they [the Opposition] are doing politics in Parliament, I am also speaking politics… During the UPA [Congress-led United Progressive Alliance] regime [in 2013, the minister didn’t detail the incident she was referring to], the then home minister did not even go to Manipur. Amit Shah camped there for three days. The Opposition is not ready to hear what he has to say, but they only want the PM to speak.”
In May this year, during a press briefing on the sengol which was to be installed in the new Parliament, Sitharaman landed in Chennai to update people in Tamil Nadu about developments and said, “The sengol is a national treasure with a deep link to Tamil Nadu and India’s freedom. It is a Chola tradition of righteous rule. The sengol confers the “order” (“aanai” in Tamil) to rule justly and fairly.”
Speaking to ThePrint, author and political analyst J.V.C. Sree Ram pointed out that Sitharaman’s monsoon session speech made waves in the state. “Certainly, it became a talking point. It reminded people of the attitude of the DMK [at present the party in power in the state,” when Jayalalithaa was allegedly heckled, Sree Ram said.
One of the DMK campaigns in the 2021 state elections was over an alleged delay in starting AIIMS in Madurai.
Countering the DMK, during her Parliament speech on 10 August, Sitharaman put the blame on the Tamil Nadu government. She said, “The budget (for AIIMS Madurai) was increased from Rs 1,200 crore to Rs 1,900 crore because the state government delayed land acquisition. If the project is still delayed, it’s because of the state government and not the Union Government.”
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Sitharaman and electoral politics
Sitharaman, who is a nominated member of Rajya Sabha representing Karnataka, has been “aggressively selling” the BJP to the people of Tamil Nadu, say political analysts.
The BJP, which had just 2.6 percent vote in the 2021 state assembly polls in the state and 3.66 percent vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, according to the Election Commission data, has been working towards making inroads into the state dominated by Dravidian parties. Political analysts state that voices like hers are key to changing the BJP’s image of a Hindi party or an anti-Tamil party.
Sitharaman’s speech in Lok Sabha, Panneerselvan said, may only be a way to distract people’s attention from the core issues being debated — no-confidence motion and the Manipur issue.
Raman said that being a Brahmin deprives Sitharaman of any scope in state politics.
“The Dravidian parties have cultivated anti Brahmin sentiment so strongly, especially DMK. It is virtually impossible for any brahmin to make it big in the political field. There is not a single Brahmin in the Tamil Nadu assembly despite comprising three percent of the population. The BJP is trying to move away from the Brahmin party tag. Because of her community, I don’t see a possibility of her getting a bigger role in state politics,” he said.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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