The bigger congress bloc headed by Selvaperunthagai of the state chief is much inclined towards DMK alliance under the current terms, another group headed by Manickam Tagore wants more seats and a power share.
Author: Aditya Pareek | EQMint
Congress–DMK Seat Talks Test Alliance in Tamil Nadu
The DMK led ruling party in Tamil Nadu has been on the verge of the crisis which it cannot afford to admit publicly. In case the Congress insists on sharing power, the upcoming Assembly election would commence, not with speeches but with fracture.
The DMK is not willing to even hear of the notion. Privately, the instinctive answer is simple: Forget it.
However, politics is seldom carried out instinctively. And it will be tested this week as their seat-sharing negotiations start. The mathematics are fine, and so is the ego.
The question is whether Congress has the organisational or electoral strength to insist on power sharing in a state where, even in the recent 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it scored a mere 4.3 per cent of the votes and has not won a seat in the recent 2014 elections despite having contested on its own.
However, in cases when it was allied to DMK, things were different. During the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and the Assembly election of 2021, the Congress strike rate had gone up significantly.
In 2021, it also easily won 18 of the 25 seats it was running in the elections to the 234-member Assembly. It won 8 out of 9 seats that it competed in in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and made an improvement of 9 out of 9 in 2024 which is an admirable ratio. It is not only scores that create alliances. They are constructed on faithfulness- or rather on pretence of it.
Within the Tamil Nadu Congress, now there are two groups. Its bigger faction in terms of the state Congress led by Chief K Selvaperunthagai, which is strongly attached to Chief Minister M K Stalin. The other group feels that the party needs to gain more seats, leverage, and share of power.
Congress Rift Deepens as DMK Weighs Alliance Future
The DMK standpoint, as perceived by the top officials, is simple: they are willing to give the Congress a boost in seats by 25 to about 28 or even 30 seats. However, once the sharing of power is introduced as a prerequisite, the gate might be shut.
And there is where the dilemma commences. According to a senior leader in the Congress, the situation being played out is not a Tamil Nadu problem, but a power game in the AICC in Delhi. Selvaperunthagai has been perceived to be a member of the party president, Mallikarjun Kharge. Lok Sabha (MP) Manickam Tagore is believed to have sided with the AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal. Alliance decisions were said to have been finalised when senior DMK leader Kanimozhi met Rahul Gandhi, to start negotiations on the pre-polls arrangements. Only numbers remained.
Yet, the noise has continued. The interventions made by Manickam in the recent past, especially his aggressive voice when he publicly insisted on power sharing, and Venugopal on Tuesday when he spoke of a clear-cut discussion on coalition, have raised eyebrows. The open stance of Tagore has brought in criticism even among the Congress people. Selvaperunthagai questioned whether Tagore is larger than Kharge and Gandhi.
Stalin is not Karunanidhi. He does not erupt – he waits. Waiting is not a lifelong toleration. Top DMK leadership that addressed The Indian Express stated that the Congress leadership was noncommittal to utterances that seemed to dilute the alliance, and that Stalin might have to think of closing the Congress out. And that would not be a little decision.
Congress Exit Scenario
The leaders of DMK are of the view that the harm that could be caused in case the Congress decides to quit their alliance, might be minimal in the number of electors that are in seats. The damage to perception would be much greater, though. The DMK-led alliance has been presenting itself as a stable one since 2019, and this is based on a series of electoral achievements. An exit by the Congress would be a prick in that image.
The Vijay factor is also present. There is yet no important national or state party that has joined hands with the actor-politician whose Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). His cadres are impatient, and time is lacking. A break of the DMK led Congress alliance, and a token realignment with TVK would be a huge boost to Vija,y who might reap more than the Congress itself.
One Congress leader in the state, in a senior position, made it clear: Even if the TVK offered the Congress 60 seats, the outcome would end up being a Congress-mukt Tamil Nadu Assembly. Another is the arithmetic in Kanyakumari, a Congress stronghold. The DMK group swept 5 out of 6 seats in the Assembly in 2021. The beneficiaries in case of the break-up of the Congress-DMK could turn out to be the AIADMK-BJP combine, considering that the latter is strong in the area.
The DMK is more deeply concerned. With the Congress quitting, there exists the danger of a large percentage of the Christian vote, which DMK insiders estimate at as high as 50 percent of that bloc, moving in the direction of Vijay. That would divide anti-BJP votes in such a manner that would help the AIADMK-BJP alliance indirectly.
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Source link: India Today
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available information and reports. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only.
