There is a commonality between Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar. This similarity does not stem from their ideologies or actions, but rather from the criticisms leveled against their governance by the opposition parties both in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.
During the 2024 election campaign, opposition leaders, particularly former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, stated that if the National People’s Power (NPP) won the election and came to power, it would merely be an ‘L-Board’ (learner) government. However, the people of the country did not care about that. They not only elected Dissanayake as President but also brought the NPP to power in the parliamentary elections with a sweeping majority of over two-thirds of the seats.
Although international political situations are also largely responsible for many of the issues the country faces today, opposition political leaders continuously claim that the lack of governance experience among those in the NPP government is the primary reason.
Opposition leaders seem to find a twisted sense of satisfaction in repeatedly claiming that the country’s economy will collapse again. It cannot be said that they are genuinely worried about the depreciation of the Sri Lankan currency against the US Dollar. They constantly prophesy daily that a government run by those without administrative experience will collapse soon.
Despite all this, many leaders of the NPP, particularly the JVP, are not entirely devoid of political experience. After transitioning to democratic politics from being armed insurgents, they have served as Members of Parliament for nearly three decades and have even been partners in government once before.
However, as far as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay is concerned, he entered politics only two years ago. Neither he nor the members of his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) possess any prior political or administrative experience.
Apart from a few former ministers and legislative assembly members who left other parties to join Vijay, almost all the TVK candidates who won this election are completely new to politics. Chief Minister Vijay selected his ministers from among them.
From the day he sat in the Chief Minister’s chair at the Tamil Nadu Secretariat, leaders of the opposition parties — especially the two main Dravidian parties — have been talking only about the new government’s lack of experience.
Former Chief Minister and DMK leader M.K. Stalin, along with his son Udhayanidhi, are calling on their party members to prepare for fresh elections, claiming that Vijay’s government will collapse soon.
Even before the elections, Stalin and leaders of other parties told the public that Vijay’s party members lacked experience and that a state could not be governed merely by cinema charisma. They do not seem to think about why the voters of Tamil Nadu ‘blew the whistle’ (voted for them) regardless of those warnings.
The people, having decided that they no longer wanted corrupt governance, did not worry about Vijay’s lack of experience.
