The TMLS, headed by Manian, will chart its future course of action when its general council meets on March 7.

Briefing mediapersons today, Manian blamed both Era Chezhiyan and Lok Shakti leader Ramakrishna Hegde for the collision course that resulted in the birth of a regional outfit. Manian said his sustained criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party's anti-secular policies and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader J Jayalalitha for her alleged corrupt practices when she was chief minister irked Hegde, who believed in protecting his personal turf as Union Commerce Minister.

The TMLS, Manian said, will support any effort to form a third front in Tamil Nadu which will be opposed to both the DMK and AIADMK. If the Tamil Maanila Congress comes forward to form such a front, the TMLS willcertainly support it. However, a third front at the national level will be irrelevant with increasing polarisation of political forces on either side of the Congress-BJP divide, he said.

Claiming that the Lok Shakti had a membership of 300,000 in Tamil Nadu, and that almost all of them will walk out of the Lok Sakthi headed by Hegde to TMLS, Manian said the problem arose when the BJP leadership pursued its own Hindutva agenda ignoring the National Agenda, which the BJP leaders adopted for implementation through the coalitional arrangement at the Centre.

Hegde has compromised with the basic principles of not only secularism but also that of national integrity and federalism, Manian charged, while referring to invoking of Article 356 of the Constitution to destabilise the Rabri Devi Government in Bihar.

Hegde is also afraid of challenging the chauvinist forces in Karnataka as he expects Lok Sabha elections soon, and therefore, he would not intervene to set the matter right in the denial of appointment ofTamils in the AG's office at Bangalore. In Tamil Nadu, Chezhiyan sought an alliance with the AIADMK in the event of Lok.