THE FINAL VERDICT

The wait is finally over. After two months of hectic campaigning by both the dravidian parties, Tamil Nadu is ready to be governed by a new party for one more term. Elections in Tamil Nadu was never fought so closely.Also election commission closely watching and forcing the parties to follow the model code of conduct. But that did not reduce the fanfare, flambouant election speeches and the war of words between the parties. Adding to the spice was the media coverage.Initially the trend favoured AIADMK. Tamil Nadu electors had to vote for a government that would pave for development.There was nothing that went against Jayalalitha, especially the last two years of her tenure. FDI's pouring in chennai, Tsunami was handled very well, during floods the government did its best to help the grieved.Unfortunately the mandate is against Jayalalitha. Now, if we analyse what went wrong then probably it was the pre-poll alliance. The people of Tamil Nadu were surprised when Vaiko joined hands with Jayalalitha.DMK had realised right from day one that it wouldn't be possible for it to form a government on its own.It turned the tables by constantly pointing out its realtion with congress at the centre.Its the numbers that changed everything. Karunanidhi has never allocated so many seats to its alliance in his political carrier.
One of the striking features of this assembly polls was it was a war of freebies.DMK started it by offering rice for Rs.2/kg, now when questioned whether it was feasible the FM said it was within the limits if the DPA led alliance if it comes to power.As a common man the main question that the government needs to answer is from where are they going to get the funds.There needs to be more transperancy in the policy formation.Its that time of the year when television manufacturers can throng Tamil Nadu as the DMK has promised colour television to those who dont posses it.I fail to understand this strategy of the DMK.Now, none of the parties have focussed on developmental issues, probably the money they are investing in these freebies can be used for rural development and for education. The AIADMK went a step ahead of providing 10kg free rice.Its hilarious :).

If we analyse then Jayalalitha hasn't done badly in this elections, if we compare her performance with the 2004 assembly elections where except Andipatti she failed to win a single seat. Obviously she antagonised the government vote share after she dismissed more than one lakh government employees. The DMK should not be happy with their performance because they have lost in some of their key constituencies in the caveri delta region.When we look at the overall picture the difference is hardly 5% of the total vote share between the DMK and the AIADMK. Jayalalitha has managed to win nearly 67 constituencies which speaks for the efforts that she has put in this elections. Its hard to believe that southern tamil nadu which has been an AIADMK bastion for so long didn't perform well. Lers not forget that it might be the last election that Karunanidhi would be consisting considering that he is already 83. But the irony is the the congress has formed an alliance with a party that once blamed it responsible for PM Rajiv Gandhi's assasination.Nobody is a permanent friend or foe in politics.Karunanidhi doesn't have an easy task ahead. Being the single largest party he has to form a coalition government or form a minority government with support from the left and the congress.Now the congress would play a crucial role in TN, now it can dictate term at DMK. Now the situation is balanced as both the parties need each other to remain in power. Jayalalitha has to rethink again on forming alliances before elections.She lost it in 2004, when she left congress and joined BJP. As said, politics is a funny game and in TN its unpredictable.