Rahul's Tiruchi speech hints at ties with DMK

The stage is all set for the formalisation and revival of the estranged ties between the DMK and the Congress in Tamil Nadu. The speech delivered by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi at Tiruchirappalli on Thursday gave enough indications that the Grand Old Party was coming closer to M Karunanidhi, the DMK patriarch.

While lambasting the AIADMK and the BJP in his 40-minutes-long speech, Rahul Gandhi was careful not to mention anything against the DMK or Karunanidhi. “If voted to power, the Congress will bring in a liquor policy in Tamil Nadu. The present liquor policy has destroyed a generation of youth in the State,” said Gandhi during his address. Interestingly, the DMK chief Karunanidhi had announced earlier in the week that he would take steps to introduce total prohibition in the State if voted to power in the 2016 Assembly election. This has been welcomed by the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee chief EVKS Elangovan.

Gandhi charged that the AIADMK Government was following the diktat of the liquor lobby. Much of his 40-minutes-long speech at the G corner ground (the same venue from where Narendra Modi launched his poll campaign in September 2013) was directed against the BJP and the AIADMK.What political analysts in Tamil Nadu watch with interest is the kind of alliance which may emerge between the DMK and the Congress. In 1971, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided to part with all the Assembly seats to the DMK and sought ten lok Sabha seats for her party. This arrangement worked well for both the parties till the Congress later replaced the DMK with the AIADMK.  

Though the DMK and the Congress were allies during 2004 to 2013, the Dravidian major had terminated the relation in 2013 following the failure of the Congress to bail out Kanimozhi, Karunanidhi’s daughter, in the 2G Spectrum case. Kanimozhi was arrested in connection with the 2G pay off case and had to be in Tihar Jail for more than six months.

The DMK’s version was that the tie-up with the Congress was terminated because of the indifference of the Grand Old Party towards the sufferings of Tamils in Sri lanka. But this did not prevent Karunanidhi from seeking the help of the Congress to get Kanimozhi elected to the Rajya Sabha in July 2013. Having tasted severe drubbings in the 2011 Assembly election and the 2014 lok Sabha election, Karunanidhi (92) and the DMK are desperate to win the 2016 Assembly election.The Congress too has been decimated in the State and its hope for revival lies in forging an alliance with the DMK.