Analyzing the election results in countries like Sri Lanka and India is a complicated task, since one factor attributed to a particular situation in one place cannot necessarily be applied to a similar situation in another place. This is more so in India than in many other countries owing to its strong diversity in ethnicity, languages and religions and due to its neighbourhood with several countries with different nationalities and interests.

Many observers attribute the humiliating defeat of India’s Congress Party at the just concluded Lok Sabha election to corruption that had engulfed the grand old party which spearheaded the Indian freedom movement during the first half of the last century. However, the very attribution is hardly relevant with regard to the Tamil Nadu situation where the Jeyalalithaa Jeyaram-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazaham (AIADMK) which had been widely accused of corruption and maladministration had gained a landslide victory in her state.

The BJP’s huge victory under the former controversial Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi seems to have bewildered many analysts and politicians in India and in other countries and they seem to be grappling to foresee the nature of BJP’s rule under Modi and its relationship with neighbouring countries. As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, the popular view for a long time had been that Tamil Nadu is playing a pivotal role in pushing the centre to act against Sri Lanka, especially when there is a hung parliament in the centre. The latest argument that had instantly been popular on the very day the election results were announced was that Jeyalalithaa who had been an eyesore to a majority of Sri Lankans and whose AIADMK had bagged 37 out of 39 Lok Sabha seats in her state is now irrelevant in decision making at the centre, as the BJP, on its own has won more than the absolute majority in the Lower House of the Indian Parliament. However, there is a strong possibility of this notion on the irrelevance of Jeyalalithaa becoming a miscalculation of the situation, as the stability of the centre has not been the sole factor that guides its policy framework and the relevance of Tamil Nadu. A recent case in point was that the centre under the Congress Party was not concerned over its reliance on the Tamil Nadu support for its very survival at the last UNHRC session where India abstained from voting for the US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka.

Also during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s tenure in the 1980s Tamil Nadu was so important among various other factors in the make-up of Indian policy on Sri Lanka, in spite of the centre being strong. Hence, Jeyalalithaa’s massive victory in her state is not something irrelevant, but a factor that has to be reckoned with, especially in relation to Sri Lanka. It would be worth recalling the drifting of the Federal Party in Sri Lanka towards secessionism once it lost its bargaining power at the 1970 parliamentary election gave the United Front led by Sirima Bandaranaike a two-thirds majority. There is no assurance therefore that the maverick Tamil Nadu leader would not take a harder stand on Sri Lanka to catch the eye of the centre and the centre in turn would not listen to her, as Jayalalithaa has an excellent relationship with Modi. Hence, Sri Lanka would have to rethink its India policy as Opposition and UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has pointed out.