Status quo for pain-drain or for stability?

Poll-time impact

Come winter session, setting the pace for upsetting the UPA-II’s apple cart was the AIADMK Supremo Jayalalitha’s explosive offer to back the Congress, if Raja’s sacking by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led to DMK withdrawing support in Delhi.

After this near game-changing bold interview by ‘Amma’ to a national television channel, a much-shaken 87-year-old DMK President and Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi, had no option but to bow to Congress’ pressure that Raja step down though coalition arithmetic delayed that decision.

As the DMK and Congress “need each other” at both the State and Centre, the former’s 18 MPs (including the sole Dalit Panthers of India MP, Thol Thirumavalavan, who is also part of the alliance), could be replaced by Jayalalitha’s grouping she had hinted at.

But with the Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu hardly four-to-five months away, the Congress’ top leaders are hardly ready for any major political realignment.

Thus, despite the storm kicked up by the Raja-centric spectrum scam, seniors in the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) are now rooting for ‘continuation of the alliance’ with the DMK for the coming Assembly polls. Karunanidhi, on his part, it is learnt, obtained an assurance that Congress will not “dump” DMK for ‘Amma’, as a sort of quid-pro-quo for agreeing to Raja’s exit. 

Sonia’s distrust

While one of the senior-most Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu and Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, for now prefers to plod along with the DMK than jump into the bumpy bandwagon of ‘Amma’, other senior leaders in Chennai say that Congress President Sonia Gandhi still does not consider Jayalalitha’s support offer as “credible” or “trustworthy” from a long-term point of view.

Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan is also in no mood for a new tie-up. She thinks eventually, UPA’s performance will outweigh all other factors.

“Though we are terribly embarrassed by the grave corruption charges against Raja, the TNCC organisationally is in a disarray and no miracle can be done by it in the next few months before the Assembly elections; so we think the best option is to persist with the DMK, as even actor-turned-politician Vijayakant heading the DMDK has no capacity to lead a viable alternative front,” reasoned a senior TNCC leader.

True, at the Congress rally in Tiruchirapalli in October, Sonia Gandhi herself launched a subtle war-cry for the Pradesh Congress to ‘make a new beginning, create a new history’, a euphemism for sharing power in the State, where it has been out of power since 1967.

But the spectrum scam  has “weakened” the DMK which will be to Congress’ advantage to bargain for more seats.

Dissenters all

There are yet vociferous dissenters against the DMK-led alliance, most notably by former Union minister from Erode, E V K S Elangovan, and the young, dynamic AICC member, Karti P Chidambaram, Home Minister’s son. They are convinced the Congress deserved more as DMK’s non-reciprocation in Tamil Nadu is very stultifying. But they are a minority.

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