DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi is arriving in the capital on Sunday to have seat-sharing talks with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Besides, he will also attend the chief ministers’ conference on internal security on Tuesday.
The DMK leader is expected to have a one-on-one talk with Mrs Gandhi. This is the first high-level talk over seat-sharing after the confirmation of the alliance, which was done after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the state sometime back. According to sources, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who met Mr Karunanidhi last week in Chennai, had demanded 80 seats for the Congress and also a share in power. Mr Karunanidhi is expected to reveal how much he would be ready to offer to his alliance partner.
It is pertinent to note that the alliance has been sewed much against the wishes of many state leaders who believe that fighting the polls in alliance with the DMK will damage the party’s prospects. But the high command decided to retain the alliance keeping in mind the precarious position of the party at the Centre. Already the Congress is reeling under the weight of corruption charges that have severely dented its image.
Besides, the party is besieged on many fronts like the Telangana imbroglio, Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy’s game plan, Maoist insurgency, price rise, ministers squabbling in public, the appointment of Mr K.V. Thomas as CVC and the issue of black money being brought back from abroad. In the light of these circumstances, the central leadership of the party didn’t want to take the risk of alienating an alliance partner and hence the decision to continue the alliance after much dilly-dallying.
According to sources, Mr Rahul Gandhi personally is not in favour of continuing the alliance with the DMK but with the results of the Bihar Assembly polls fresh in the minds of all Congressmen, the party has no choice for the moment.
Also, senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in charge of TN, has been marginalised completely and issues related to the state are directly looked after by Mrs Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, sources said.
Interestingly, this is the first time that the DMK is likely to wind up seat-sharing talks with its alliance partner ahead of the AIADMK of Ms Jayalalithaa.