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DMK-TMC alliance will continue
N Sathiya Murthy in Madras
The Dravida Munnetra Kazagham-Tamil Maanila Congress alliance will continue for the general election. The two parties have buried the hatchet and decided to face the Jayalalitha-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham alliance together.
''We have sorted out minor irritants at the lower levels, and the alliance will continue,'' DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said on Friday. And, as reason thereof, he gave TMC founder G K Moopanar's 'clarification', issued yesterday, on the Jain Commission interim report on former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
At Thursday's media conference, the first since the Jain report imbroglio erupted last month, Moopanar reiterated his known stand that the DMK had no hand in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, though the party had been associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Moopanar would not jump to hasty conclusions until the Commission's final report was available. He distanced himself from close aide and Rajya Sabha member Peter Alphonse who, at the height of the 'destabilisation game' at Delhi, even mooted a Congress-United Front government at the Centre minus the DMK.
With Moopanar saying that his party had not broken the alliance with the DMK as yet, and declaring that it was for the DMK executive to take a decision in this regard, the ruling party would not lose time.
Karunanidhi despatched confidant and state Health Minister Arcot N Veeraswamy for a meeting with Moopanar.
For the record, Moopanar had a talk with Karunanidhi this morning, settling the issue amicably.
The DMK executive will meet on Sunday to formalise the decision.
What really clinched the deal was the 'Jayalalitha factor' and Moopanar's threat of the TMC boycotting the poll.
Moopanar has lately been under tremendous pressure, with party cadres and an influential section of the leadership demanding that the TMC snap its ties with the DMK and go it alone in the Lok Sabha poll. This would be a prelude to the TMC staking its claim to Fort St George, the seat of power at Madras, in the assembly poll of 2001.
So has the DMK whose cadres feel the TMC had stabbed it in the back over the Jain Commission report.
By speaking about the TMC boycotting the poll, Moopanar first sent out a signal to party cadres who are eager to win elections and share power in whatever form, without wich they would have to sit out this poll at a very crucial juncture for the 19-month-old party.
More importantly, it was a 'white threat' to the DMK that the ruling party may have to take on the AIADMK alliance alone. It's only in each other's company that the DMK-TMC combine was able to trounce the AIADMK last year.
Karunanidhi was not one to lose time once Moopanar spoke about the 'fourth option'. Though Karunanidhi has said that party cadres would work together as they had done for last year's election, sources within the two parties, however, have their own fears.
With open hostility running deep between the poll partners, particularly at the lower levels, it will now be difficult for the top leadership to patch up the differences. In this context, they refer to the 1980 assembly election, held after Indira Gandhi's return to power.
Though the 'sympathy' created by the 'unjust dismissal' of the M G Ramachandran government helped the AIADMK romp home against a DMK-Congress alliance, sources point to a different reason.
With the seat-sharing pattern providing only for a coalition government if the alliance won, cadres of both parties undercut each other, and lost the seats to the AIADMK, led by a charismatic M G Ramachandran.
It was this fear that was at the back of those TMC leaders clamouring for the party going it alone now. However, they had not bargained for Moopanar's basic strategy as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned.
He has all along worked for the Congress (now the TMC) aligning with the DMK to finish off the AIADMK, before getting ready to take on the ally at a later stage.
Besides, at a personal level, he would rather be known as someone who paved the way for Tamil Nadu returning to the national mainstream than as prime minister or chief minister for a short duration.
If the DMK and the TMC have sorted out their differences, at least at the top level, the AIADMK is still in the process of choosing its allies.
''We do not require any ally to win any of the seats that we are now hopeful of winning,'' said an AIADMK source.
That being the case, Jayalalitha has been meeting leaders from both the BJP and the Congress, with former Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Vijayabhaskar Reddy meeting her on Thursday.
''We already have the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the Janata Party," the AIADMK leader added. "With the continuance of the TMC-DMK alliance, even the Pattali Makkal Katchi will be with us, and we feel more than comfortable,'' added the source. ''Even now, we can, and may have to pick and choose, and decide on a national ally after the election is over. It will make sense, as the Congress is not expected to do well in the poll, and the BJP may still require us to form a government.''
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