JOIN USJust a few days after the DMK quit the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) declareed that its ties with DMK “will continue” in Tamil Nadu.
Despite the IUML national leadership having urged the DMK to “reconsider” its decision to snap ties with the Congress over the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue and recent developments at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the IUML has said, “In Tamil Nadu our (IUML) alliance with the DMK will continue.”
IUML Tamil Nadu state president K M Kader Mohideen told Deccan Herald on Sunday that his party saw no contradiction in this position even though the IUML’s main ally in Kerala continued to be the Congress.
The IUML’s state unit has formally adopted a resolution to this effect at its administrative committee meeting on Saturday, reiterating its support to the DMK and also approving of the latter’s stance on the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue. “As far as the Sri Lankan Tamils issue is concerned, we believe that the DMK reflects the total sentiments of the Tamil people,” Mohideen said here.
This was, notwithstanding the fact that the Congress position on Sri Lanka substantially differed with that of the DMK now, he contended. “The basic principle governing IUML’s political ties in each state is to be in alliance with secular and democratic forces in that state,” Mohideen said.
On that basis, “we are in alliance with the Congress in Kerala and in Tamil Nadu with the DMK, with whom IUML’s relationship goes back to the formative days of the Dravidian Movement,” Mohideen explained.
“In Tamil Nadu, we will continue to be part of a DMK-led alliance, but that does not mean that we have severed our ties with the UPA,” the IUML leader reasoned. In fact, if need arises, “we would be happy to be a bridge between the DMK and the Congress,” he said.
Describing as “hypothetical” the DMK turning towards the BJP-led NDA in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, Mohideen said national elections were still a year away and nothing could be said about it now. “We see the DMK as our natural ally in Tamil Nadu and the Congress at the national level, to ensure the rights of the Muslims as a religious minority and as guaranteed in our Constitution,” he added.
Meanwhile, sources in the DMK said party patriarch M Karunanidhi was already looking forward to making new political friends, to “compensate” for the vote-share loss caused by its snapping ties with the Congress in the state.