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TMC considers Third Front
for assembly polls

Tamil Maanila Congress founder G K Moopanar is in New Delhi, amid reports that the party may consider forming a Third Front for next year's assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

The visit assumes significance after the AIADMK left its alliance options open, at its general council meeting in Madras earlier this week.

According to sources, Moopanar is likely to discuss the alliance issue with senior Congress leaders, including party president Sonia Gandhi. He is also likely to meet Communist Party of India-Marxists General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Communist Party of India leader A B Bardhan.

The TMC is keen on participating in a future government in Tamil Nadu and has made a coalition set-up a pre-poll condition for joining any electoral alliance.

Against this, the AIADMK has left its stand vague by now insisting on the return of 'MGR rule' in the state with party supremo J Jayalalitha as Chief Minister.

If Tuesday's general council meeting was expected to clarify the AIADMK thinking on the coalition question, particularly following the TANSI case verdict against Jayalalitha, it has done the exact opposite.

While swearing loyalty to Jayalalitha's leadership, it also mentioned 'MGR rule' as the only option. This implies a coalition, if the post-poll scenario demanded, but indicated an AIADMK eagerness for single-party rule. With just six months for the assembly polls, the AIADMK resolution has left the TMC more confused.

The vagueness with which the AIADMK has treated the coalition option runs counter to the TMC's Chidambaram resolution, where it was made a precedent for any poll alliance.

The AIADMK's avowed loyalty only to Jayalalitha's leadership has scotched hopes of some second-line TMC leaders. They hoped Moopanar would lead the Opposition alliance, if Jayalalitha is disqualified following the TANSI case verdict.

With the AIADMK firm and other intended allies silent, some TMC leaders feel that the party may have been pushed into a corner on the alliance question, vis-a-vis the AIADMK.

The TMC has been critical of the ruling DMK in the state and its Bharatiya Janata Party ally at the Centre, having gone soft on the latter in between.

With the National Democratic Alliance option unavailable, these TMC leaders feel that the AIADMK may force them to take what is offered on the poll eve.

Thus, they say that the TMC's decision to wait until the polls, to decide on the alliance, could prove counter-productive, in the absence of a poll wave of the 1996 kind, for the party to exploit.

According to them, the AIADMK may not be averse to the TMC forming a Third Front, if nationalist votes it could grab out of the BJP ally in the NDA could be more than what that the party could contribute to an Opposition alliance in the assembly polls.

It is to be seen if the Congress high command, in the middle of organisational elections, will have the time and be in a mood to worry about the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

State Congress president E V K S Elangovan, straight from New Delhi when the AIADMK general council passed its resolution, is on record that the party would decide on its electoral alliance only on the eve of the assembly polls.

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