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TMC sends out wrong signals to voters

N Sathiya Moorthy in Chennai

The Tamil Maanila Congress is confused, not knowing which way to go with the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections due before the third week of May.

While at one level the flux provides three options, at another level, it sends out a wrong message to voters that the party leadership continues to be as confused as ever.

"I do agree that it is a difficult situation, but a win-win situation for the party, nonetheless," said a senior party leader about the alliance question that came up for detailed discussion at an emergency meeting of the party's political affairs committee on Thursday evening.

"If we did not take any decision, it was not because of a want of choice, but because of overwhelming choices before the party," he said.

The leadership concedes that the TMC may have frittered away advantages of the 1996 assembly elections, by delayed and disputable decisions for five years. "From an emerging major player, we have been reduced to the status of a minor partner in any major alliance, or a major partner in any minor alliance that we can forge at this stage."

The PAC had a "frank and detailed" discussion on the options, enumerated over the past year, time and again. While the DMK and AIADMK options are fraught with the possibility of the TMC having to forsake claims for power-sharing, as is being demanded by the party now, the possibility of the TMC leading a Third Front of mostly 'caste-based, if not casteist parties' too got a free mention at the PAC meet.

The PAC took note of AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha's repeated assertion that the party was not for a coalition set-up, as demanded by the TMC. But what has irked the TMC leadership is Jayalalitha's equally public invitation thrown to the Vanniar-strong PMK, now a member of the Vajpayee Government in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance dispensation at the Centre.

"Jayalalitha is seeking to play the PMK against us, thinking that we would be cowed down," said the TMC source, adding, "But what she should remember is that even the PMK is using the 'AIADMK card' only to get a better bargain from its DMK ally under the NDA arrangement. After all, the PMK has two ministers at the Centre, which it cannot forego overnight, and we too know our little political games."

Indications are that the TMC's bid to re-open the DMK option is its own way of answering Jayalalitha. "But unlike the AIADMK, we haven't received any formal offer from the DMK," conceded the TMC leader. "But we know we are welcome to the DMK alliance, with or without the PMK in it, and certainly with the BJP in. It is the 'BJP angle' that is holding us back, and the bid for a 'grand alliance' in West Bengal, may open up that option as well for the TMC in Tamil Nadu."

Some speakers at the PAC meeting advocated the possibility of the TMC doing business with the BJP, through the good offices of the DMK. What has irked them - which in turn, they cited as the reason - was the AIADMK's reported moves to reopen the BJP option at the national-level vis-à-vis the Congress parent of the TMC. "If the AIADMK could consider ditching the 'secular front', there is nothing that should stop the TMC from considering the BJP option," the section in the TMC said.

Some senior leaders are also said to favour the BJP option, saying that the party may have blundered over the no-confidence vote against the Vajpayee Government. "The TMC's three votes would have made a difference, but we decided to vote out the Vajpayee Government then. Neither could the Congress form an alternative government, nor did the TMC regain the three seats in the Lok Sabha polls that followed in 1999. Someone as competent as former Union finance minister P Chidambaram lost his native Sivaganga seat, that the campaign that his was the vote that broke the Vajpayee Government."

Senior TMC leaders say that Jayalalitha has been sending confusing signals. According to them, her public assertions contradict her private pleadings, reportedly through the good offices of senior Left leaders like Harkishen Singh Surjeet of the Communist Party of India-Marxists and A B Bardhan of the Communist Party of India. "She sent word through them that she was willing for a post-poll coalition, if only we would not insist on making it public, lest the DMK projects it as her weakness. But later in public, she asked TMC founder G K Moopanar to make up his mind quickly, on her terms, lest she would open talks with the PMK, as an alternative."

With this, the voter feels confused by the TMC indecisiveness.

"That is unavoidable," said a senior leader, conceding, "The last time too, such confusion about a Third Front cost us dearly, in terms of credibility and campaign time. While the NDA and Congress combine leaders had launched campaigns, we were discussing seat-sharing, and our candidates could be announced in some cases only on the last day of filing of nominations. And until the last minute, we have generated hopes of the Congress parent standing by us, only to be deserted. This time, in turn, Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee is reportedly coming to meet Jayalalitha on Saturday, only that neither the state party leadership, nor the TMC leadership, has any information - as usual."

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