DMK chief M Karunanidhi has, this week, met leaders of the BJP and their allies in Tamil Nadu -- MDMK's Vaiko, PMK's Ramadoss and TRC's Ramamurthy -- to clinch the alliance.

At tomorrow's meeting, the DMK general council is expected to ratify the proposal to align with the BJP and go with the `National Democratic Alliance' in ``national interest and in order to have a stable Government at the Centre''. It will also declare its resolve to stand by the minorities, and reassure them that despite an alliance with the BJP, it will protect the minorities.

The DMK is also likely to set up a committee to hold discussions with the allies on seat-sharing. Karunanidhi himself would like the BJP to deal with some of these parties and ensure that their demands are commensurate not only with their strength but alsopolitical reality, in an atmosphere of give-and-take. The DMK would rather the BJP did the hard bargaining.

For a party like the DMK, which has all along considered the BJP or its earlier version, the Jana Sangh, as essentially a North Indian, pro-Hindi party, to veer round to an electoral tie-up, appears strange. Fortunately for the DMK, parties like the AIADMK and the MDMK have set precedents a little over a year ago.

What has also come in handy for the DMK is the image of Atal Behari Vajpayee as a ``good man'' who is seen as having distanced himself from an aggressive Hindutva policy. Vajpayee's rapport with Karunanidhi and his nephew, Murasoli Maran, have also helped the DMK make up its mind.

While traditional Muslim and Christian supporters of the DMK have found it difficult to digest an alliance with the BJP, they have little choice but to go along with their leader's view that the BJP is the best bet at the national level.

The DMK gave enough time to a Congress emissary to discuss thepossibility of a tie-up. However, the DMK leadership sensed that the Congress camp did not reciprocate, and felt that the party could not wait too long. Further, the DMK did not wish to get caught in a bind with the elections likely to witness polarisation between the BJP and the Congress.

Thus, the DMK steps into a courtyard which it wouldn't have dreamt of doing even five years ago. The stigma of untouchability that the BJP/Jana Sangh bore for decades in the citadel of rationalism, thus stands erased.