The honeymoon seems to have ended and the endearments have dried up. Until the other day, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi, hailed as the architect of a highly successful alliance down south, could make no mistake. Now, the Dravidian constituents, particularly the DMK, which leads the pack with 16 MPs, and the PMK (6 MPs), are proving the most troublesome, meddlesome, and downright embarrassing for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.

The latest in the bag of complaints is the Neyveli Lignite Corporation disinvestment which had a rather dramatic curtains-down yesterday. Apparently, there is deep resentment in the Congress ranks over the ‘‘double standards’’ of Karunanidhi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s favourite ally. While Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh buckled under pressure when the DMK chief threatened to pull out his nominees from the government, his arm-twisting is said to have chipped Congress-DMK relations.

Tamil Nadu Congress leaders point out that the DMK had not raised even a whimper of protest against the Centre’s disinvestment moves earlier. Since July 2004, soon after the UPA came to power, Union ministers Dayanidhi Maran and T R Baalu have, as members of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, gone along with all the CCEA’s decisions to offload stakes from profitable PSUs.

Whether it was divesting 5 per cent NTPC shares or proposals to sell five per cent equity in the Power Finance Corporation and 15 per cent in National Mineral development Corporation and the constitution of a National Investment Fund with money from the disinvestment drive, the DMK had given its vote of approval. While Karunanidhi attempted to shrug off responsibility for the NLC disinvestment decision, saying his two ministers had not attended the CCEA meeting concerned, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss (PMK) had attended the full cabinet meeting which followed immediately.

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