Madurai: There seems to be no end to DMK’s winning streak. After winning last week’s Thirumangalam by-election, today DMK surprised opposition parties in Tamil Nadu by winning Alanganallur Jallikattu.

Jallikattu is a traditional Tamil bull taming sport played in rural Tamil Nadu as part of Pongal Celebration. Though often compared to Spanish running of the bulls, Jallikattu is unique as bull is not killed as practiced by Spanish ‘matadors’. But bulls never return this courtesy to men.  Jallikattu at Alanganallur near Madurai is particularly famous for its grand scale.  This year, ruling party DMK decided to try their luck.

Emboldened by its thumping win over principal opposition AIADMK in Thirumangalam by-election, DMK announced its candidate Veda Adhiyaman will be fielded in Alanganallur Jallikattu. AIADMK leader Jayalalitha said that her party will boycott this event. So people lost interest in the event as there won’t be any tough competition. But event started garnering attention when super bull tamers of tamil movies “Murattu Kalai RajiniKanth” and “Virumandi Kamal Haasan” decided to join the fray.

On Pongal day, thousands of people gathered at Alanganallur to watch the clash of titans. DMK candidate Veda Adhiyaman was the first one to show up at the venue. People were agitated when the announcer said, “great bull tamer, Murattu Kalai Rajini Kanth can’t participate in the event as he went to Himalayas.” “Virumandi Kamal Haasan” did come in but decided not to tame the bull for unknown reasons. However there are rumors that “Virumandi Kamal Haasan” had fallen in love with bull owner’s daughter Annam(18) and so he decided not to try taming the bull. This left only Veda Adhiyaman in the fray who tamed the bull after toiling for half-an-hour. He did suffered minor injuries.

DMK chief Karunanidhi hailed this as a victory to Tamil tradition. But opposition leader Jayalalitha accused DMK for match fixing and asked minority DMK government to resign on moral grounds.

Taking a dig at the conduct of Tamil Nadu political parties in the run-up to the Thirumangalam assembly by-election Chief Election Commissioner Gopalaswami termed - when it comes to poll violations, the southern state is worse than UP, Bihar and even Zimbabwe.

Tirumangalam assembly by-election on January 9 is hotly contested between formidable Dravidian Parties - Karunanidhi led DMK and Jayalalitha led AIADMK. This by-election run-up saw wide spread violation of election norms with both parties luring voters with money and almost day to day incidents of violence.

CEC Gopalaswami too made a special mention of wide spread violations in Tirumangalam. Speaking to reporters at Mumbai airport the CEC said - “when it comes to poll violations even UP, Bihar can’t compete with Tamil Nadu any more; Tamil Nadu can even edge out Zimbabwe in this department”.

In India, comparison to UP, Bihar is common as these two populous states were normally considered as a bench mark for how low things can get to in India. But comparison of TN bye-election to Zimbabwe elections is what makes CEC statement more controversial. Last year Zimbabwe elections were denounced by western world as a disgrace to democracy. The controversial poll was infamous for mass poll riggings which led to a tussle between opposition and President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party. The stalemate continued for months and normalcy returned only after European Union and African Union jointly intervened to broker a power sharing deal between ruling and opposing factions. Many political observers in Tamil Nadu were unhappy with the comparison of TN by-election scenario to a world known democratic disaster.

TN chief electoral officer Naresh Gupta had said in Chennai that CEC Gopalaswami’s comments were regrettable. He declined to take further questions.

A movement demanding declaration of “Madras Bashai” as classical language is gathering momentum in the southern metropolis Chennai (Madras). For people who are not familiar with “Madras Bashai” - it’s a slang of a language which “Madarasis” believe to be “Tamil”. It draws most of its vocabulary from Telugu, Hindi, Urdu and all languages across the world other than Tamil.

 
Conferring classical language status to “Madras Bashai” is opposed by some quarters, especially the real Tamil scholars who say “Madras Bashai” need to first prove itself to be a language before demanding classical status. Some Tamil Nadu politicians say “Madras Bashai” does not need classical status as real “Tamil” is already declared as a classical language. But the supporters of “Madras Bashai” seem to be undeterred by this opposition. The movement is growing stronger by day. Particularly in the “North Chennai” area - comprising Parrys, Washermenpet, Tondiarpet the support has been almost 100%. Though support in “South Chennai” is comparatively less in some pockets like Saidapet the support is as overwhelming as North Chennai.

 
Speaking to reporters the movement leader “Mylai Kabali” issued warnings against state government and asked union government of India to act at the earliest. He also warned if the state and union governments don’t act in time they may go for a “Raj Thackrey” style agitation to throw non “Madras Bashai” speaking tamils out of Chennai. He also confirmed the media reports that Chennai Mayor who proudly remarked in several occasions that his mother tongue is “Madras Bashai” and not “Tamil” is ready to resign the Mayor post for the movements cause.