DMK Cobbling up Alliance Ahead of Assembly Polls

Chennai: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is cobbling up an alliance with the Congress and other "like-minded" parties in preparation for the Assembly elections.

On Saturday, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad met DMK chief Karunanidhi regarding the alliance and later announced the tie-up with the regional party which he described as the most dependable partner. The former stressed that issues such as seat sharing and being part of the DMK led government were not a priority now and that the main goal was to ensure that DMK-led government comes to power.
He said that the election would be fought under the DMK leadership and put on Karunanidhi's party the responsibility of roping in more constituents into this alliance, including DMDK.

As to what had changed between 2016 and 2013 when DMK snapped ties accusing the Congress of betraying Sri Lankan Tamils, Azad said that there were compulsions and pressures in politics and that the two parties had won elections together in the past also. The DMK-Congress split had also come against the backdrop of the arrests of former Union Minister A Raja and Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha MP, in the alleged spectrum allocation scam. Congress had contested the last Lok Sabha elections on its own and had drawn a blank. It had contested the last Assembly elections along with DMK but secured just five seats.
Comments on Cong-DMK Alliance: BJP Tamil Nadu president Tamilisai Soundararajan said the DMK quit the UPA accusing the Congress of letting down Tamils in Sri Lanka. "What has changed since 2013 to form an alliance with Congress now," she asked.
Tamil Maanila Congress vice-president B.S. Gnanadesikan said the DMK cited the Sri Lankan Tamil issue for not aligning with the Congress. The DMK seems to forgotten its statements of 2013, he said.
CPI (M) State Secretary G. Ramakrishnan said the Congress-DMK partnership is not a surprise as both the partners are anti-poor and implement neo-liberal economic policies.