By Walter Jayawardhana

The Indian side kick of Velupillai Prabhakaran and the leader of the Marumalarachi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam V. Gopalaswamy alias Vaiko has been badly defeated by more than 50,000 votes in his Tamil Nadu constituency, the latest Lok Sabha polls results show.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Better known as Vaiko, the maverick politician, who is a non-Tamil , has taken extremist Tamil positions in his demagoguery and has made the division of Sri Lanka one of the main principles of his party.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Vaiko was defeated by Manik Tagore, a Congress party candidate in the Virudhunagar constituency. His party also showed poor result by winning a solitary seat in the whole election.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Vaiko and all pro-LTTE elements in the Tamil Nadu politics were trounced by the voters as if by karma in a dramatic coincidence with the probable demise of Velupillai Prabhakaran and military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Sri Lanka Army announced after thirty years the complete coast of the island nation has been liberated from the terrorist group.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Results in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu indicate that candidates of another pro-LTTE party the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) has lost all seven candidates.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But Thol Thirumavalavan , the pro-LTTE VCK party was the only pro-Eelam leader who was able to win the elections. Vaiko’s MDMK party put forward four candidates but three candidates including the leader were defeated.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Vaiko was so passionately connected with Prabhakaran’s movement, in 1989 he illegally entered Sri Lanka, lived with Prabhakaran in a bunker and even allegedly witnessed torturing of IPKF soldiers by LTTE terrorists. Photos showing both he and Prabhakaran in happier times were found recently by the army in abandoned Prabhakaran properties and issued to the press. Vaiko threatened that “rivers of blood will flow ” in Tamil Nadu if Prabhakaran is injured by the Sri Lankan offensive.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ MDMK, VCK, PMK were the main extremist parties who were vigorously campaigning by doing street demonstration, fasts and addressing public meetings in notoriously rabble rousing speeches.

But the most stunning election blow had been delivered to AIADMK Supremo Jeyalitha Jeyaram , the former Chief Minister who threatened to send the Indian Army to intervene for a separate state, in the most dramatic policy change ,if she won most of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu. She won only 9 seats, surprising everyone.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The PMK who were with the DMK broke with them and joined hands with Jeyalalitha declaring that the only solution to Sri Lanka conflict was separation of the country. PMK lost all six seats it contested in Tamil Nadu and the one it contested in Puducheri.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The LTTE was so sure of its support in the Tamil Nadu voters, during the campaign issued an appeal to vote for the pro-LTTE candidates. But the results show that with the downfall of Prabhakaran, the former sympathy has almost eroded fully.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The pro-LTTE candidates targeted Congress leader Sonia Gandhi for conniving with the Sri Lankan military to avenge the death of her husband Rajiv Gandhi.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A news agency quoted a Chennai based lawyer ,K.Elangovan as saying “the verdict is a vote against the LTTE, a vote for India’s Sri Lanka policy.”