TMC calls truce as only DMK can bail it out in RS poll

The Tamil Maanila Congress has declared a truce to the war of words, and of nerves, with the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazagham in Tamil Nadu.

The truce stems from the TMC's own political compulsions: it needs the DMK's support in the October 16 Rajya Sabha by-poll.

As a TMC functionary points out, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, an ardent critic of the DMK government, has not visited the state after three TMC members, including party supremo G K Moopanar, quit the Upper House following a petition filed by a Shiv Sena member. The petition said the three cannot continue as Rajya Sabha members as they were elected on Congress tickets.

''Other TMC critics of the DMK too have been lying low, rather they have been told to lie low,'' said the source. These include TMC assembly leader S Balakrishnan and its youth wing leader A Chellakumar. Yet another critic S Peter Alphonse, one of the three leaders who quit the Rajya Sabha, has publicly bent backwards to praise DMK supremo M Karunanidhi. He is expecting re-election with the DMK support along with Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayanthi Natarajan, another RS member who has resigned.

Though several TMC leaders maintain that the truce is only temporary, and that the party would start training its guns on the DMK once the Rajya Sabha elections are behind them, others beg to differ.

''Moopanar is in no great hurry to break the DMK alliance, or discredit the ruling party,'' said another party leader.

With a mid-term election staring the nation in its face, Moopanar knows he will require the DMK, as much as the reverse is also true.

Apart from the logistics involved, any overreaction against the DMK will only discredit the alliance, said the source.

The pact involves the DMK backing the TMC for the three RS seats, and the former nominating its candidate for the lone Pondicherry seat, where the alliance is in power.

Though local TMC leader S Kannan had staked his claim for the Pondicherry seat, the DMK had to be accommodated. ''Even this was not without reason. Moopanar did not want to be seen as opposing a Congress candidate (former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao's confidant V Narayanaswamy), even if there are no moves for a merger of the two parties,'' said the source.

Indications are that Congress president Sitaram Kesri has instructed the Tamil Nadu unit not to meddle in the volatile Pondicherry affairs. ''This implies that Kesri is prepared for a defeat in Pondicherry now,'' said the source. ''He perhaps has long-term plans for an alliance with the DMK-TMC combine during the Lok Sabha polls.''

Disclosing that the Congress may join the alliance, the source said the party would get two or three Lok Sabha seats from among those held by the DMK.

Both sides need each other. And for the Congress, it is the only way ''it can retain a semblance of existence in the state'', said another TMC leader.

Sources said the disciplinary action initiated by state Congress president K V Thangabalu against a predecessor, Vazhappadi K Ramamurthy, and a few former MPs is indicative of this. So also his complete sidelining of leaders opposed to TMC supremo G K Moopanar in organisational nominations.

''The Congress politics in the state in the post-Kamaraj era has been Moopanar-centric,'' said the source. ''Besides, most of the leaders who stayed back in the Congress after last year's vertical split, leading to the formation of the TMC, were anti-Moopanar. By ejecting them from party posts, and encouraging them to leave the organisation, Thangabalu is paving the way for a rapprochement with the TMC supremo, whose alliance Kesri greatly values.''

Politically, too, the two sides have little option. Faced with the formidable AIADMK-MDMK combine for the coming elections, whenever held, the DMK-TMC alliance can do with the five per cent vote that is still with the Congress, for historic reasons, said the source. ''And the Congress can do nothing with it unless it is in the company of a stronger ally with a people-friendly image.''

According to this source, the Congress could not do business with the AIADMK as the erstwhile ruling party is courting the MDMK, whose leader V Gopalswamy is not favoured for his ''LTTE connections''.

However, he is not sure what the Congress would do when the Jain Commission report is made public, and the DMK stands ''implicated for the failure of its government in 1989-91''.

Indications are that Kesri is in no mood to do business with the AIADMK, if he could help it. ''First, he has to demolish all that his predecessor P V Narasimha Rao found right. He also seems to be convinced that the Tamil voter is not yet ready to vote back Jayalalitha after last year's electoral fiasco.''

As for the number of seats the Congress would get, the source said Karunanidhi may increase the TMC's quota in the next elections, asking it to allot a few seats to the new alliance partner.

This would allow Moopanar to assert his supremacy in the alliance, and confer on him the responsibility of keeping it going.

Karunanidhi would then aim at long-term goals, it is said. As always, the DMK leadership is interested in retaining the state government, without sharing power with alliance partners. ''By giving away largesse in the Lok Sabha poll, Karunanidhi will be in a better position to argue for a greater share in the assembly elections, when held.''

The same motive forced him to give the three RS seats to the TMC.

For all this, however, Moopanar seems to be playing his cards close to his chest. Perhaps because of his long-term strategy of ''restoring Kamaraj rule'' in the state.

Moopanar is likely to distance himself from the DMK if a stable government, of which the TMC is a part, is installed at the Centre. ''Then, the TMC may part ways with the DMK and go on to fight the assembly elections, four years from now, on its own, or in the company of friendly parties willing to accept it as the leader,'' said the source.

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