• How would you like this current crisis to be resolved, say, six months from now? Would you like to see this government survive so that no elections take place? But would you like the government to survive at the cost of the deal?

What we had in mind was what sort of a government will succeed us in Delhi. If the BJP captured power, what will happen to religious harmony and Hindu-Muslim unity? We should look at the country’s interests. For that, the present regime should continue. If this government goes, it will not be in the interests of the country.

• Would you advise Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi: ‘If you cannot resolve this, then put the deal in the cold storage for now. Don’t make an issue out of it and carry on with the government?’

I’ll ask you something: if this government falls, who will pursue the deal?

• Sir, did you think sometime, because you are the most experienced man in politics in India today, that there was immaturity on both sides in the way the crisis became so big? For three months this country has been in suspended animation.

I don’t wish to reply to this.

• Tell me about your experience of dealing with different coalitions. So give us a few lessons (gurumantras) in sharing power in Delhi from a regional party’s point of view.

Generally, it is one of the DMK’s most important principles that states should become powerful. By this I do not mean they should go their separate ways. But they should have full rights under a federal set-up. What we now have is not genuine federalism, going by the party’s vision. This is only a coalition government. Just because the party that wins the election does not have sufficient numbers it draws support from different parties from different states to form a government. This is not federalism the way the DMK sees it. Since the days of Anna (DMK founder C N Annadurai), we have put forward an idea that the Constitution should provide for moving towards federalism. The DMK has been campaigning for this concept for long. It has been calling for suitable constitutional amendments to this effect from time to time.

... contd.