M A I N   N E W S

Jaya drops TMC-Cong combine

Chennai, March 5
The efforts to form an electoral alliance between the AIADMK and the TMC-Congress combine virtually failed today with the AIADMK deciding to fight the elections in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry by teaming up with the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and sharing power in the union territory.

Under a seat-sharing agreement reached between the AIADMK and the PMK, the latter will contest 27 seats in Tamil Nadu and ten in Pondicherry, PMK founder leader S. Ramadoss announced here, after talks with AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha.

The agreement provides the two parties ruling Pondicherry to keep power for two-and-a-half years each by rotation, he said.

“Ms Jayalalitha would announce the constituencies allotted to the PMK,’’ Dr Ramadoss told newspersons.

The agreement between the AIADMK and the PMK, which had joined the AIADMK front after deserting the NDA, came even as the Congress was insisting on a predominant place in Pondicherry where it is heading a coalition government now.

Following the AIADMK’s agreement with the PMK, the prospects of a third front led by the TMC being floated has brightened.

The Congress had been questioning the admission of the PMK into the secular front without consultation with other partners.

This was resented by Ms Jayalalitha, who finally expressed her disinclination to take the Congress into the front.

However, the TMC headed by Mr G.K. Moopanar, which Ms Jayalalitha wanted to include in her front, took the stand that it would fight the election along with the Congress.

A section of TMC functionaries, sizeable in number, had favoured an alliance with the AIADMK, while another section favoured either a tie-up with the DMK-led front or floating a third front.

Former Union Minister and senior TMC leader S.R. Balasubramanian was seen leaving Mr Moopanar’s house along with a few other senior leaders in a pensive mood.

A hushed silence descended on Mr Moopanar’s house after the news trickled down that the alliance was virtually off.

The mood, however, was different at the TNCC office, where middle-level functionaries appeared jubilant. TNCC president E.V.K.S. Ilangovan was a keen votary of a third front and had openly demanded an explanation from Ms Jayalalitha for admitting the “pro-LTTE’’ PMK into the secular front.

With Pondicherry out of reckoning for the Congress, the possibility of the Congress joining the AIADMK-led alliance is ruled out. However, there is no statement from the TMC on whether that party is prepared to tie up with the AIADMK sans the Congress.

Both the TMC and the Congress had earlier declared that the two parties would fight the elections together.

An indication of the AIADMK’s firmness to wrap up the alliance was available last evening when Ms Jayalalitha announced at Chennai airport on her arrival from Hyderabad that a final decision would be announced today.

Cong may form third front in TN
Prashant Sood
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5
Taken aback by the AIADMK decision to dump it in Pondicherry and offer a few seats in Tamil Nadu, the Congress today seemed to be preparing for floating a third front in both states.

Having been left high and dry in the seat-sharing arrangement revealed by AIADMK leader Jayalalitha, the Congress is making all-out efforts to see that its last hope, the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), remains on its side.

Soon after Ms Jayalalitha’s alliance arithmetic became known today, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in-charge of crucial southern states, had telephonic talks with TMC leaders in Chennai to reaffirm that nothing had gone wrong with the Cong-TMC alliance. The two parties had earlier declared that they would be contesting the elections together but the TMC was being sent feelers of a better deal in the AIADMK front if it broke off from the Congress.

Of late, the Congress was not directly talking to Ms Jayalalitha on the seat-sharing arrangement and had left it to the TMC to clinch the final number on its behalf.

While the Congress was willing to go soft on the number of seats it gets in Tamil Nadu, the party was in no mood to compromise its position in Pondicherry, where it has a government at present. The Congress, which was hoping to form a government in Pondicherry, had told Ms Jayalalitha that while the AIADMK could be included in the future alliance government, the PMK had to be kept out because of its ‘pro-LTTE’ leanings.

Expecting to have a major share in the alliance in Pondicherry, the Congress hopes were badly dashed when it was indicated today that the PMK and AIADMK would alternately lead the government in Pondicherry for two-and-a-half years each.