Days before the vote in Tamil Nadu on April 6, the The Income Tax department raided 28 premises linked to DMK leaders. Four belonged to the daughter of DMK boss MK Stalin, Senthamarai, and her powerful husband V Sabareesan, in addition to the facilities of a close Sabareesan collaborator.
If the DMK is elected to power, Sabareesan, Stalin’s strategist, facilitator and sounding board, is expected to be one of the most powerful faces in the state.
Sabareesan, who is 40 years old, comes from an apolitical family that belongs to Tirunelveli. He and Senthamarai were married for love and have two children.
While Senthamarai has shown no interest in politics and is busy with a school it runs in Chennai, Sabareesan himself was not present in the previous DMK regime. It was during DMK’s 10 long years in the Opposition, when M Karunanidhi gradually fell into the background due to his illness and Stalin took over, that Sabareesan began to have a voice in party affairs.
People in Stalin’s inner circle say that Sabareesan’s strengths are his communication skills, his good relationships with almost everyone in the party, as well as with allies and rivals, and the fact that he is happy being in the background. “He is also a good listener,” said a source.
Be it Stalin’s sister Kanimozhi, her son Udhayanidhi Stalin, or even the BJP leaders in Delhi, Sabareesan has affable relations with everyone and friendly ties with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav. “He never pursues enmity or attacks his rivals, unlike many people in power,” said a source who was previously in Stalin’s camp.
Sabareesan is also believed to have played an important role in recasting Stalin, leading his first election, at the age of 68, as a new generation leader. The process has been going on for the last six or seven years, even as Stalin gradually consolidated the many centers of power in the DMK into one. The erosion of these centers of power, including MK Alagiri and Marans, was accelerated by controversies during the last DMK rule, including Alagiri’s heavy-handed tactics and the 2G scam naming the Marans. These are believed to have contributed to the DMK’s defeat in the 2011 Assembly polls.
Stalin, who needed a reliable soundboard as the others were outcast, found such a person in Sabareesan. The son-in-law is believed to have played an important role in getting powerful leaders like Senthil Balaji of AIADMK to cross over. He also tapped into Konelelu Sunil as an electoral strategist before the 2016 Assembly elections, and after the DMK lost that election, he brought in Prashant Kishor. In the eventual friction between the two, Sunil left to become the electoral strategist for AIADMK’s chief ministerial candidate, Edappadi K Palaniswami.
“When Sabareesan pushed for new ideas and film videos of Stalin, many asked him if he was making a movie. But their efforts reaped benefits, ”said a DMK leader. DMK’s ‘Stalin thaan Vararru (Stalin is coming)’ has become the most popular song of this election.
“Senior leaders like KN Nehru or EV Velu would not have been able to convince Stalin of the need to use social media and Twitter. Sabareesan had the space to sit down and convince him of these things, ”said a source.
Since Sabareesan’s apolitical ambitions do not pose a challenge to Udhayanidhi, potential problems at the DMK in the next few years could be between Udhayanidhi and Kanimozhi. Sabareesan may be called back to do what it does best.
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