Cong-DMK rift resurfaces ahead of Tamil Nadu polls
While a break-up might cost the DMK some seats, it is the Congress that stands to lose more.
WHAT’S an election season without a problem in an alliance? As Tamil Nadu gears up for the state Assembly polls in a couple of months, a Congress-DMK spat that seemed to be heading towards a break-up appears to have blown over for now, but the issue at the heart of the very public clash still hovers over the Secular Progressive Alliance: why can't those who fight elections together in Tamil Nadu agree to share power in a coalition government if voted to office?
What began as the Congress asserting this demand to its Dravidian ally in the state came close to breaking point for a longstanding alliance, delaying seat-sharing talks. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was the first to raise it in January, when DMK deputy general secretary K Kanimozhi met him for seat-sharing talks.
After Kanimozhi reportedly said a firm "no" at a stormy meeting, Gandhi did not rake up the demand again, but prominent voices in the party close to the central leadership picked up the baton. Earlier this month, Chief Minister MK Stalin reiterated at a public forum that the DMK was not for a coalition government in Tamil Nadu. But the matter did not end there.
The argument being put forward for power-sharing is that the Congress has stood with the DMK all these years, even providing unconditional outside support when the DMK formed a minority government in 2006, but suffering ignominy and parliamentary defeat in 2014 "because of the DMK" — a veiled reference to the alleged 2G scam. So, it's payback time.
The DMK's response is that a coalition government at the Centre and Dravidian rule in the state is the ideal formula for the health of federalism and the Dravidian model. Second, the Congress has benefited by winning seats in both the Assembly and Parliament due to the alliance, and that the very idea of a coalition puts off Tamil Nadu voters due to concerns about stability.
The DMK believes it has experienced popular rejection due to a power-sharing agreement. In 1980, on the back of a sweeping win in the Lok Sabha election, including in Tamil Nadu, the Congress-DMK believed it could repeat the performance in the state Assembly election. The MGR-led AIADMK government was dismissed. The Congress and the DMK agreed on a coalition government. The alliance lost to the AIADMK-led alliance.
The Congress could have pushed for power-sharing in 2006, when the DMK did not win a majority. But Sonia Gandhi and other party leaders were disinclined. The Congress may have believed it had greater leverage by offering outside support to a minority DMK government, but that lost opportunity is being aired as a bad decision now.
It's not just the DMK that is against power-sharing in the state. The AIADMK, too, does not believe in power-sharing coalitions. Like the DMK, it has fought elections in alliance with national and state parties, and been part of ruling coalitions in Delhi since MGR's support for the Janata government. But never in the state.
AIADMK leader Edappadi Palaniswami was quick to deny any arrangement for a coalition rule with the BJP when Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced after persuading the party into an alliance that the "NDA" would form the next government in Tamil Nadu.
With Congress Member of Parliament Manickam Tagore and All-Indian Professionals' Congress chair Praveen Chakravarthy pressing on with the demand, it seemed the party was going for broke, the TNCC president's frantic reprimands notwithstanding.
The perception grew that this was more than posturing for a higher share of seats, and that the Congress was opportunistically escalating the matter at a time when the entry of actor Vijay has introduced more fluidity than usual in Tamil Nadu's political scene. His Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) has not joined any alliance yet.
As the rhetoric escalated, Stalin conveyed that the DMK was not afraid of going it alone.
The sudden Rs 5,000 payouts to 1.32 crore women — a three-month advance to the beneficiaries of the Rs 1,000 universal basic income scheme for women, plus a bonus "summer allowance" of Rs 2,000 — may have been as much a gearing-up for a possible break with the Congress as a pre-emptive move against an anticipated Election Commission of India strike at the scheme.
Stalin is also banking on the state's economy, headlining the government's target of a $1-trillion economy by 2031, its growth rate of 11.19% in 2024-2025, and welfare programmes. Over the last two years, the DMK leader has also been focussed on positioning the contest in Tamil Nadu as one of the ideologies — between the Dravidian model and Hindutva, cultural nationalism, federalism and constitutionalism. On Wednesday, he tabled the report of his government-appointed High-Level Committee on Union-State Relations, among whose recommendations is a paring down of the Governor's powers.
DMK supporters are clear that while a break-up with the Congress might cost the party some seats, it is the Congress that stands to lose more.
In every election that the two parties have fought together, the national party, which has no organisation to speak of in Tamil Nadu, has been fully dependent on its Dravidian ally and its well-oiled machinery of cadres for smooth vote transfers. With its winnability, the DMK has helped keep Congress alive in Tamil Nadu. The INDIA bloc's biggest haul of 40 seats was from Tamil Nadu.
Over the last few days, when a split in the alliance seemed imminent, social media lit up with speculation of a Congress-TVK alliance. Sections within the Congress and among Vijay's fans want this. . Some believe if the two joined hands, they would "sweep" Tamil Nadu.
It is anyone's guess how the Congress would gain from a party that has more star-struck fans than workers on the ground, and whose leader's saviour complex is more suited for movies, in which the hero takes all, than for the rough and tumble of electoral politics.
Seat-sharing talks are next on the agenda and are expected to begin next week. How that goes will show the mood in both the Congress and DMK after a bruising first round on power-sharing. The Rajya Sabha elections in mid-March will be another test for the alliance.
