TMC may ditch Cong to join AIADMK front

TMC may ditch Cong to join AIADMK front
Neerja Chowdhury

NEW DELHI, March 1: For the last one week, the Congress has been keeping its fingers crossed on its alliance with the AIADMK. But when TMC MP Jayanti Natarajan flew into the capital yesterday to meet Sonia Gandhi, she did not bring good tidings.

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For all the hype about a third front in Tamil Nadu, the TMC and the Congress seem set to go their separate ways. The TMC is getting ready to forge an alliance with the AIDMK and in all likelihood Jayalalitha will give the party anything between 35-40 seats. The Congress will however be left on the shelf, unless it is prepared to lump five seats that Jayalalitha is prepared to give the party in the final offer she has made and routed through the TMC.

Natarajan, who was in the capital as the emissary of TMC chief G.K. Moopanar, met Sonia last night and then again on Thursday to convey to her Jayalalitha's offer. Natarajan is believed to have informed Sonia that Jayalalitha was not willing to give the Congress more than four sets for the assembly. The Tiruchi Lok Sabha seat, which fell vacant following the death of P.R. Kumaramangalam last year, has also been offered to the Congress.

The officebearers of the AICC went into a huddle in the evening to take take a view on the latest turn of events in the southern state.

Jayalalitha became reluctant to take the Congress on board after the PMK broke ranks with the NDA and joined her. But since the TMC was inconsistent, she agreed to accomodate the Congress with five seats which she said could be given the party out of the quota meant for the TMC.

For all the proximity that G.K. Moopanar enjoys with Sonia Gandhi, the TMC rank and file is not prepared to go with the Congress and commit harakiri. Forming a third front in Tamil Nadu is a non-starter and will wipe out the regional party in the battle between the AIADMK and DMK fronts.

The TMC is understood to have conveyed to the Congress leaders the logic that there was no point in both parties being wiped out. The TMC would have its options open once it managed to get a clutch of MLAs in the state assembly. Afterall, Jayalalitha too has all her options open in the post poll scenario, and has reopened her channels of communication with the BJP.

The TMC leaders have also not forgotten that in the 1999 general elections, it was the Congress that had ditched the TMC, and aligned with the AIDMK. It was the TMC which had then made a case for forging a third front in the state.

The Congress lost out because of its failure to strike when the iron was hot. Pranab Mukherji's meeting with Jayalalitha in Chennai in mid-January -- the meeting reportedly took place at the instance of the AIADMK leader -- should have been followed up immediately with negotiations on the number of seats. At the time, sources said, the AIADMK supremo was prepared to give the Congress 22 seats. The Congress had however pitched its demand at 60 seats, which was surprising because it won only two Lok Sabha seats in the 1999 elections and that translates to no more than ten assembly seats.

The slow reflexes of the Congress and the lack of trust between Jayalalitha and Sonia Gandhi are the two factors responsible for the way the party has been cornered.

The Congress circles in Tamil Nadu are cut up with the way they have been totally excluded from the decision making process related to the forthcoming polls in Tamil Nadu. Besides Sonia Gandhi, the committee to decide on election strategy in Tamil Nadu has heavy weights like Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Pranab Mukherji and Janardhan Reddy. For that matter, no Congress leader from the state was involved in the talks with Jayalalitha at various times during the last two years. First Sharad Pawar was sent, then it was Manmohan Singh, then Mukherji and finally Mukherji and Ghulam Nabi Azad went in the last round.

After the PMK swung around to her, `Amma' was cool to the idea of tying up with the Congress. She is believed to have promised 25 seats to the PMK, and ten each to the two communist parties, and a couple to the Muslim League. The TMC had contested 40 seats last time and was not prepared to accept less than that figure. Jayalalitha had drawn a line at 150 seats for the AIADMK, below which she was not prepared to go. She has already made it clear that she will not form a coalition government with her allies in the event of a victory.