DMK blinks first, gives 63 seats to Congress
March 8: After unleashing its trademark rhetoric on Dravidian self-respect, the DMK chose to blink. The party on Tuesday conceded the Congress demand for 63 seats to preserve its alliance with the UPA leader for the April 13 poll for the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
The agreement will be signed on Thursday at the DMK headquarters Anna Arivalayam by the Congress team. While the Congress emerged the victor in this war of nerves that lasted over a fortnight, the DMK ended up losing its face and might have to yield to the other, even more provocative, demand by the Congress to choose its constituencies.
Sources said the DMK was compelled to concede the Congress demand after its Union ministers, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, and Mr M.K. Alagiri, met the finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, twice during the day at his Parliament House office and phoned the details to the party patriarch, Mr M. Karunanidhi.
They told him that the Congress was unwilling to scale down its demand for 63 seats and pressured him into accepting truce arguing that it would be suicidal for the DMK to face the election without the Congress as the party was sure to lose badly in the southern districts.
Mr Maran had by then convinced Mr Alagiri that losing the south would mean a personal setback for him, as he had always been hailed in the party circles as the Madurai strongman and one responsible for all the electoral victories in the region.
Thereafter, both men brought pressure upon Mr Karunanidhi arguing that the DMK would face problems by being out of the government for three years “at a time when cases, including spectrum, are still on”. Mr M. Karunanidhi was worried that his daughter, Ms Kanimozhi, could be questioned and this forced him to accept Congress’ seat demand.
Post new comment