BJP Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai's tactic of breaking his party's ties with senior partner AIADMK might have found critics within his party but is finding resonance in the unlikeliest of places: the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee. TNCC president K Selvaperunthagai is advocating that Congress adopt the same tactic in Tamil Nadu and try to capture power in the state.
The Congress lost power in the state in 1967 and has since spent its time in the shadows of one or the other of the two Dravidian parties, the DMK and the AIADMK.
At the TNCC general council on June 11 in Chennai, he harped on bringing back Kamarajar rule in Tamil Nadu, which is a reference to the Congress rule with K Kamaraj as chief minister (1954-63). Of course, other Congress leaders were aghast at listening to his speeches, especially after the Congress, in alliance with the DMK and other parties, had swept the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry.
EVKS Elangovan, former TNCC president, and Peter Alphonse, a senior leader, had to encounter opposition from the cadre when they spoke up in support of DMK president and chief minister MK Stalin.
Selvaperunthagai’s speeches have upset the DMK leadership, and Elangovan called a meeting of journalists to declare his party's commitment to the alliance with the DMK. Elangovan also claimed that Selvaperunthagai had uttered “a few lines” against the alliance by “mistake” and that he had clarified his position since then.
Another former TNCC president KS Alagiri argued that there was no conflict between strengthening the party and being in alliance with other parties. This was in essence a counter to Selvaperunthagai, who had replaced him as state committee president. The argument was that it didn't make sense to ditch allies on the grounds that the party could grow only if it contested a majority of the seats. Growth was, in this reckoning, a result of building up the party from the grassroots, and not a consequence of contesting from a large number of seats.
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Selvaperunthagai has been talking to party cadres statewide, soon after polling on April 19, saying that the Congress has been a junior partner for 57 years and it was time to recapture power in Tamil Nadu. The party cannot be in alliance forever if it has to strengthen itself in Tamil Nadu, he told the cadres.
The confusion in the party about entering into alliances as a junior partner was also evident in the speeches of other leaders at the general council meeting last week. P Viswanathan, a former MP, suggested that while continuing the alliance with the DMK for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the party could go it alone in the local body polls. The reasoning was that the party stood a better chance to win if the polling segments were small as it has pockets of influence. And also, more party functionaries at the lower levels could contest directly. But this too encountered opposition. Jothimani, a newly elected MP, said these functionaries invested everything they had to fight the local body elections, and if they didn't have the financial and manpower resources of a senior partner, they would have to risk losing a lot.
The senior leadership at the national level is clearly not comfortable with the talk of breaking the alliance even as a tactic of increasing its bargaining strength for the local body elections that are due soon. But some of them also realise the importance of a state leadership that doesn’t kowtow to the DMK at every stage.
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