Though Karat had urged the DMK patriarch to intervene to resolve the crisis, he refused to do so. Interestingly, Karunanidhi who generally meets Left leaders whenever he is in the national Capital did not meet any of them when he was here on Wednesday. He left for Chennai on Thursday.

While a clear picture is yet to unfold, Karunanidhi on Thursday said the snapping of ties between the Left parties and the UPA and the coming together of Left and UNPA would have no impact on the ties between the DMK and Left parties in the state.

In Andhra Pradesh, both the CPM and CPI are open to some electoral arrangement with Chiranjeevi depending on his party’s programmes and policies.

“Let him announce the party. We will then get to know what are its policies and we will take a decision after that,” CPI deputy general secretary D Sudhakar Reddy told The Indian Express.

While the Telugu Desam is hoping to cobble up a grand coalition including the Left and BSP to take on the Congress in Andhra Pradesh, Chiranjeevi’s party could play a spoilsport to its plans.

Sources in the CPM said the party wanted to contest in more number of seats this time round as it felt that the mass struggles undertaken by it, especially for distribution of house sites and cultivable land to rural and urban poor, had enabled it to reach to wider and newer sections of people.

The party says it has a presence in at least 120 Assembly segments. While last time it contested in 15 seats and won 14, this time it wants to double the figure. Senior leaders said they had not taken a decision as yet and were waiting for Chiranjeevi to launch his party. “There is no compulsion of going with the TDP,” a senior Left leader said.

... contd.