Manmohan Singh displayed political astuteness even before he became the Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh played a vital role in the Congress clinching alliances with AIADMK and DMK, the regional powers then headed by political colossuses J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, on different occasions.

Chennai: Manmohan Singh was widely known as a reluctant politician, but his political negotiating skills were on display even before he assumed office as Prime Minister. He played a vital role in the Congress clinching alliances with AIADMK and DMK, the regional powers then headed by political colossuses J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi, on different occasions.

Singh’s visit to Chennai in the first week of January 2004 as Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s emissary to meet DMK chief Karunanidhi set the ball rolling for the two parties to revive their ties, which took a massive hit after the Jain Commission report.

The one-man commission had indicted the DMK for unchecking LTTE’s activities in Tamil Nadu that led to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

The seeds sowed by Singh were so strong that the alliance between the Congress and DMK continues till date, except between 2013 to 2016 when they had split. Singh’s 2004 visit to Chennai came just two weeks after the DMK quit the A B Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime in December 2003 following the death of Karunanidhi’s nephew and former Union Minister Murasoli Maran in November.

Five years earlier, in 1999, Singh was in Chennai to meet Jayalalithaa at her palatial Poes Garden bungalow, about a few km away from the Gopalapuram residence of Karunanidhi, along with his colleague A K Antony to finalise an alliance with the AIADMK, which had just withdrawn support to the Vajpayee government.

Despite the Tamil Nadu Congress at its lowest ebb after G K Moopanar took away a majority of the cadre and leaders to his Tamil Maanila Congress, Singh proved to be a tough negotiator as he convinced Jayalalithaa, a hard bargainer, to part with 12 seats, though the party won only three. The AIADMK facing a formidable DMK-BJP-PMK alliance was also one of the reasons for Jayalalithaa being generous with the Congress.

Jayalalithaa held Singh in high stature and never used strong words against him even after the AIADMK and Congress parted ways. The warmth shared by them was at display when Jayalalithaa and Singh met multiple times in their capacities as Chief Minister and Prime Minister.

In 2004, Manmohan’s meeting with Karunanidhi broke the ice between the two parties that had fought many elections together when the Congress was helmed by the late Indira Gandhi. After the alliance was finalised with Singh playing a key role, Sonia Gandhi flew to Chennai to meet Karunanidhi, and they both developed an excellent rapport with each other over the years.

DMK allotted 10 seats to the Congress in 2004 and the alliance consisting of PMK and Left parties won all 40 seats, including one in Puducherry. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh were two engines that powered the UPA-I, a coalition stitched by Sonia Gandhi and leaders like Karunanidhi, which Singh helmed.

Though Singh and Karunanidhi shared pleasant ties, constant demands of the DMK and pressure exerted by it on UPA-I and UPA-II regimes did strain the ties between the two in later years. However, they praised each other in public, while Karunanidhi never shied away from flaunting that Tamil Nadu received several big ticket projects when it was an ally of the Congress.