Easily by far the most heartening outcome of the recent local body polls in Tamil Nadu is the sharp decline of the so-called Pattaali Makkal Katchi (the party of the proletariat-PMK).

Yes, amid the din over the orchestrated violence in the capital, many observers seem to have failed to notice that the PMK has fared pretty badly in the northern districts, in the Vanniar heartland, that is.

And what would have come as a most humiliating blow for the ever-blustering Dr.Ramadoss was that the party he founded drew a blank in his native town of Tindivanam.

The PMK could not win a single ward there. Or in Panrutti. In Vridhachalam, Cuddalore and Villupuram, it was a single digit score. In panchayats too, the picture is not very different.

And this kind of a performance when it has been around for quite some time, when something of whatever amassed by the leadership should have percolated down, and when it should have been able to raise its profile in various ways making use of its leverage with the coalition governments at the Centre and at the state.

Completing its misery would be the performance of the fledgling DMDK.

(This latest actor-turned-politician too should be shocked, for in that very Vridhachalam, from where he had won so handsomely only four months ago, his party has been able to win only two wards. But that is a different story.)

For a party which went about claiming that it was the third largest after the DMK and the AIADMK, the results are some sobering lesson. It is thanks to the alliance factor that the PMK has been able to save its face, at least for the day.

The trend that started in 2005 with the shock defeat of the DMK in the Assembly by-elections in Kancheepuram and Gummidipoondi (both with dominant Vanniyar presence) has intensified and could see the PMK reduced to a rump.

But Ramadoss can never be counted out. See what he has done in Tindivanam. Was momentarily flummoxed when the final tally showed zero against his party, for he had made the DMK agree to allot the chairmanship of that municipality to the PMK. But where was the member to be elected?

And here comes the juiciest bit. Breaking news for indiainteracts, let me tell you friends, Ramadoss has wooed over a DMK rebel who had defeated the PMK in a ward.
The DMK was predictably reluctant to enable a rebel to become chairman, but Ramadoss played some brinkmanship game to make the big brother come round, it is said. The rebel-defector would be elected chairman of Tindivanam with the support of the DMK, which has ten councilors.

For all his avowed Dalit concerns, Ramadoss would not cede the chairmanship to the DPI, which, incidentally, has done better than the PMK, winning two wards in that town. Indeed only when it looked like the chairmanship could go to the DPI, Ramadoss induced the DMK rebel to cross over, it is claimed. How could   a Vanniyar leader stand a Dalit municipal chairman, please?

So Ramadoss can keep on with his wheeling dealing endlessly, thanks to the gullibility of his constituency, but certainly all his threats to capture power in the not too distant future and install his own dear son as the Chief Minister would hereafter sound hollow.

That is some good news for the people of Tamil Nadu. I am not denouncing the PMK from a Cho-like middle class perspective. Far from it. I am actually angry that Ramadoss has betrayed his own constituency.

The party that sought to be more Dravidian than the rest and vowed to bring together the backward castes and the Dalits, now stands exposed as yet another ugly outgrowth of our democracy.

Vanniyars still tend to look down upon Dalits, and mutual accommodation is difficult to come by. The PMK has not meant empowerment of Vanniyars either, except for giving them an illusory pride that they have got some clout even at the national level.
PMK MPs and MLAs remain as distant from the people as the rest of their ilk, busy as they are feathering their own nests.

Economically and socially, the northern districts remain as underdeveloped as they were  two decades ago, and there is no sign that things could change for the better in the near future.

The violence that the PMK unleashed, once mistaken for subaltern stirring, has now become plain thuggery aimed at shoring up the fortunes of a few individuals.
Decibel levels crash and eyeballs pop up in many circuits whenever any mention is made of the empire built up by the father-son duo. (The son is of course our dynamic Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.)

Has not the father Ramadoss done anything really useful, say for his own community at least, apart from the trickle down effect.

Ah, well, his Thamizhosai, a daily and Makkal Tholaikkaatchi, a TV channel, both deserve to be lauded richly.

While the former is an unlikely party newspaper, providing as it does some healthy fare, carrying reports on issues that really matter to people at large and keeping party propaganda to the minimum, the TV channel studiously avoids all titillation stuff and seeks to promote folk arts.

Perhaps the best case scenario would be for the PMK to be so completely marginalized that its founder would devote his attention full time to the TV and the newspaper - the son has no such interest, one learns, and he would be happy to live off his present earnings for the rest of his life.

What next then? Vijayakanth is certainly no appetizing alternative, and I can't bring myself to say anyone or anything is better than Ramadoss and his PMK.
Where am I then? Despairing, as usual, but am certainly buoyed up that yet another traitor to the oppressed masses might fall by the wayside. At least that is how it looks like at this juncture.