Cong arm-twists DMK before meet

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Chennai: After a brief respite since pulling out of the UPA-II in March last, the DMK once again got to taste the Congress party’s arm twisting even while preparing for the 2014 Lok Sabha poll.
Barely a few hours after he announced the party district secretaries meet on August 16 to discuss the poll strategy, the exally ‘hit’ DMK president M. Karunanidhi where it pains the most his family.
The CBI and ED ‘leaked’ scary information about the cases involving Karunanidhi’s family members.
While the CBI ‘leak’ said the agency concluded its two-year preliminary inquiry into the alleged misuse of 323 BSNL phone lines by his grandnephew Dayanidhi Maran during his tenure as the telecom minister, the ED ‘sources’ told reporters in Delhi that a Jharkhand high court order in another case has now enthused them to ready the charge sheet against Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi and former Union minister A. Raja for alleged money laundering in the 2-G case.
“These two media leaks are pure arm-twisting. Congress is desperate to get us back into its camp because its leaders know they will draw a blank if the party goes it alone in TN in the 2014 poll,” said a DMK MP preferring anonymity. Another DMK senior said the Congress wished to get the DMK as well as Vijayakanth’s DMDK into its fold.
“They (Congress) feel Vijayakanth is not dependable and could still go with the BJP, so they want to zero in on us. They will all kinds of tricks,” said a DMK district secretary, recalling that Stalin has said his party would have nothing to do with Congress.
While the DMK men fumed at media ‘leaks’ targeting the party's first family, the state Congress seniors seem happy that the development would force the DMK to not just agree to join the 2014 alliance but also yield substantial number of poll seats to the Congress.
The party is presently isolated in TN and could come a cropper unless it gets a Dravidian partner, admitted a Congress warhorse recalling that his party could squeeze 63 Assembly seats from the 2G spectrum-strung DMK in the 2011 state elections.