Chennai, Jan 4 (BPNS)
Even as the political parties in Tamil Nadu are busy preparing for the upcoming Urban Local Body elections, the alliance partners of the DMK are irritant over the big brother attitude of the DMK regarding seat sharing.
Congress has already raised concern with the state DMK leadership after several district secretaries of the DMK had conducted interviews of party leaders who are tipped to become candidates in the polls. The Congress has voiced the party’s displeasure in this regard to the DMK organizing secretary R.S. Bharathi with the TNCC president, K.S. Alagiri himself raising the matter.
Sources in the Congress party while speaking to BPNS said that the DMK has already conducted unilateral interviews of its party leaders in many districts for being considered as candidates in the urban local body elections. The Congress is sore that this would lead to seats like SC/ST reservation, women reservation and those seats where the DMK have not got suitable candidates now open for alliance partners.
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), another alliance partner of the DMK has also spoken to the DMK leadership regarding the unilateral selection of party candidates. The VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan MP has already communicated to the Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin regarding these unilateral interviews carried out by the DMK district secretaries.
VCK leadership told BPNS that the Chief Minister was all ears to the concern raised by the party and that the VCK expects DMK to give justice to them. The VCK is a powerful political party with roots among the Dalit communities and hence the possibility of the DMK heeding the suggestions and complaints of the VCK is high. While the SC/ST reserved seats may be provided to the VCK, there is a sizeable Dalit vote bank in seats that does not fall under the reserved category and hence the opposition raised by the VCK will be clearly taken up seriously by the DMK.
The CPI and CPM have also aired their grievances to the DMK leadership on the party district secretaries conducting interviews to finalize candidates. A senior leader of the CPI who does not want to be named while speaking to BPNS said, “The DMK has all the right to conduct interviews of their probable candidates but they should have the audacity to inform us about the seats to be allocated to us in the Urban polls. If things go like this, we may have to wait till the last moment to know about our seats which are not good in coalition politics.”
Sources in the DMK however pooh-poohed the claims of both the left parties and the Congress and said that only VCK deserves a semblance of respect as other than the VCK no other parties have any grass-root support in the state.
A senior DMK leader while speaking to BPNS said, “ What are the locus standi of Congress and that of the left parties, they don’t have anything substantial at the ground. The VCK has something on the ground and the grievances they raise can be considered seriously. As far as we are concerned, we will stick to the coalition dharma and we don’t have any issues sharing seats with Congress, left parties, and the VCK but they should not try and dictate terms with a political party that has a grass-root following.”
