Cong jittery as DMK discusses strategy for early LS polls -Governance Now

Cong jittery as DMK discusses strategy for early LS polls

Relations with some other UPA partners near-sour

GN Bureau | January 11, 2012

The DMK's general council meeting scheduled on February 3 has the Congress jittery as it is believed that the 2014 general elections is the main agenda for the meeting.

DMK's move comes as a surprise for senior functionaries of the Congress who made frantic phone calls to DMK leaders and mediapersons covering Tamil Nadu affairs to understand what had provoked the southern party.

DMK has so far been a dependable ally for the Congress and has never threatened the strength of the ruling alliance despite many setbacks in the recent years. However, a general council meeting to discuss an early polls scenario could mean something big for the UPA.

Neither the Congress nor its other allies in UPA II have discussed the possibility of early Lok Sabha polls. The move, therefore, is being watched with apprehension by UPA's Trinamool Congress and Nationalist Congress Party.

Congress leaders are speculating that the poll discussion could be more about gearing up cadres for the upcoming elections as DMK had suffered crushing defeats in the Tamil Nadu assembly and civic elections last year. They also hold that the DMK's general council meeting and its agenda could be a thinly-veiled threat to the alliance. DMK, unsure of whether Congress will join hands with Jayalailthaa for the next general elections, could be signalling a threat.

DMK's unilateral decision comes at the heels of the Trinamool rattling the UPA by saying that Congress is free to walk out of the ruling alliance in West Bengal. Even Sharad Pawar of NCP has given Congress and ultimatum to decide if it wants to continue with the alliance in Maharashtra.

One cap within the DMK believes that the decision to discuss a poll strategy could be Karunanidhi's way of upstaging rival AIADMK's election overtures as party chief and Tamil nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa hosts Gujarat chief minister and senior BJP leader Narendra Modi in Chennai on January 14. Sources have said that the meeting would send out a strong political signal to Congress' leaders in Tamil Nadu - G K Vasan and P Chidambaram.

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