Stalin says 'family-like ties' with Rahul but power-sharing won't work in Tamil Nadu; Congress says people will decide

'Some people with ulterior motives are attempting to disturb the alliance. Neither us (DMK) nor them (Congress) are worried about this', Stalin said.

Chennai: Rejecting Congress’ demand for share in power, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Wednesday said that a coalition government would not work in Tamil Nadu even while asserting that the DMK’s long-standing alliance with the national party will continue for the 2026 assembly polls.

At the same time, Stalin spoke about his “excellent” rapport with the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, saying their “family-like ties” went beyond politics. The DMK chief’s comments are not surprising as the Dravidian parties have been averse to sharing power with their pre-poll alliance partners.

An experiment by the DMK and Congress to contest in almost an equal number of 234 assembly seats promising a coalition government if voted to power failed miserably, following which the former never ever came even to sniffing distance of sharing power despite running a minority government with outside support from the latter between 2006 and 2011.

“It will not work in Tamil Nadu. We know that and they (Congress) also know that well,” Stalin told the India Today conclave, when asked to comment on the demand of power sharing. “Some people with ulterior motives are attempting to disturb the alliance. Neither us (DMK) nor them (Congress) are worried about this,” the Chief Minister added.

On Gandhi, Stalin said the LoP considers him as his “elder brother” and he considers him as his “younger brother.” “This is beyond politics. He (Rahul) considers me as one among his family. I too consider him the same,” Stalin added.

Congress has been demanding that the DMK should share power if the alliance came back to power after the April-May assembly elections. The demand upset the DMK which is still dithering to constitute a panel to launch seat-sharing talks with allies.

Stalin’s statement effectively ends the Congress’ dream of enjoying power, at least for now, six decades after the party was ousted by the DMK in 1967.

Though TNCC chief K Selvaperunthagai said Stalin had the right to express his party’s views, Congress whip in Lok Sabha, Manickam Tagore, wrote on his X page that people of Tamil Nadu will decide whether the state would have a coalition government or a single-party government.

“It was a mistake on our part to not have demanded a coalition government in 2006 (DMK won just 96 seats and was short of 22 seats for a simple majority in the Assembly),” he added.

At the core of DMK and AIADMK opposition to coalition governments is the fear of losing their image of invincibility and erosion of their core vote bank.

Tamil Nadu has also faced unusual situations where alliance partners of the ruling party secured the Leader of Opposition post in the Assembly multiple times -- 1984, 1991, 1996, and 2011 -- due to the sheer number of seats they had won. The rival front was often trounced so badly that the alliance partner assumed this role.