Tamil Nadu Congress president K Selvaperunthagai (L) and Mallikaarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi
Chennai/New Delhi: Congress central leadership will meet its senior leaders from Tamil Nadu on Saturday evening in New Delhi to fine-tune its strategy for the Assembly elections later this year, amid a section in the party seeking to put pressure on the alliance leader DMK for more seats to contest and a power-sharing arrangement in the post-poll scenario.
The meeting assumes significance against the backdrop of a section of the party raising the decibel levels over the Congress playing second fiddle to the DMK, which they believe is detrimental to its organisational growth amid resentment among the cadre over not getting enough traction in the administration.
Sources said the meeting at Indira Bhavan on Saturday at 4 pm will see a section of the party leaders demanding the leadership to take a call on demanding a power-sharing arrangement, which the DMK has not agreed to whenever it was in government, as well as more seats. This section wants to bargain hard with the DMK, with superstar Vijay entering politics with his TVK.
Sources said the demand for six Ministers in a DMK-led government post election would be made at the meeting. However, sources said most of the leaders do not want a break with the DMK but would like to exert pressure on the M K Stalin-led party.
Sources told DH that the DMK leadership had conveyed to the Congress that power sharing was not feasible and that the Dravidian parties had never gone to the people with the idea of coalition politics. The DMK has cited the failure of the 50:50 seat-sharing between the DMK and the Congress in the 1980 Assembly elections to drive home the point that power sharing will not work in State politics.
“It was conveyed that such a promise will not go down well with the DMK cadre. Whenever the Congress was allotted a higher number of seats, the party won less. The current strike of 18 MLAs against 25 the party contested is the best in many years for the Congress and that’s why we ask them not to seek more seats,” a source told DH.
Another source said the DMK has also told the Congress that it would be discussing allocating more seats for the party at the negotiating table. “We are willing to discuss this proportion but not power sharing,” the source added.
Congress leaders say the party should ask for more seats from the DMK and try to win the maximum out of them. They told DH that many MPs and MLAs are likely to bat for continuation of the alliance with the DMK and argue that breaking away from a 20-year-old alliance just months before elections would not work in favour of the party.
“I will argue in favour of the DMK alliance. I will also seek a clarity on who we will align with if we break away from the DMK. Vijay is certainly not an option for us this election. We have to put a full stop to the alliance question and start working towards the election,” a Congress leader told DH.
Another leader said the meeting on January 17 is expected to put an end to speculation regarding the alliance.
Many Congress leaders whom DH spoke to said the party should strengthen its infrastructure at the ground level which is currently weak except in districts like Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli.
“Our focus should be on winning seats this election rather than talking about power sharing and which alliance we will be part of. The Congress gets active only before elections and goes into hibernation after the elections,” a district Congress leader said.