With M Karunanidhi, the nonagenarian president of the DMK, on Monday going ahead with releasing the names of his party candidates for the upcoming lok Sabha elections, the Congress has no other option but to go it alone in the hustings in Tamil Nadu. Not a single regional outfit or any other political party in the State has shown any interest in forging an alliance with the Congress.
A day after Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who faces an uphill task in retaining the Sivaganga constituency, told party workers to ready to face the election all alone, the Congress said it will go alone in the southern State. “The Congress can face elections alone or with allies. Parties like Janata Party, United Janata Dal fell into oblivion, but Congress is not like that. Even if there is no alliance we will field candidates in all 40 constituencies (39 in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry) and seek votes telling people about the party’s achievements,” Chidambaram told party workers.
This was the first “official” announcement by a senior leader of the party that the Congress in Tamil Nadu would go all alone in the April 26 election. At the AICC briefing on Monday, Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed said that the party would be going it alone in the State in the upcoming lok Sabha polls as there is no possibility of any alliance in Tamil Nadu “as of now”.
The above statements come amid reports that the party’s last-minute efforts to stitch together an alliance with DMK were blocked by its senior leader MK Stalin even as the actor-politician Vijaykanth-led DMDK joined hands with the BJP.
“Stalin has set his eyes on the 2016 Assembly election. He is least bothered about the 2014 lok Sabha election. This is because he knows well that all his detractors in the party would be decimated in the lok Sabha elections and he would emerge as the face of the DMK,” sources said. With Alagiri suspended from the party, Stalin has emerged as the one and only centre of power in the DMK.
In the 2009 elections, Congress, then a partner in the DMK-led DPA had contested 16 seats and won nine while the alliance itself claimed an impressive tally of 28 seats. DMK was part of the Congress-led UPA since it came to power at the Centre in May, 2004. But the rout in the 2011 assembly election and the incarceration of DMK chief Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi in the 2G Spectrum Scam also made the DMK call off the alliance with the Congress in February 2013.
AIADMK is contesting all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu on its own along with the lone constituency in the neighbouring Union Territory of Puducherry. DMK has firmed up an alliance with IUMl, MMK, VCK and Puthiya Tamizhagam. Alliances have played a major role in the outcome of lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu with the combination led by either of the two main Dravidian parties, AIADMK and DMK, winning a majority of the seats in past elections.