Vaiko: Time for tie-ups

Chennai, Dec. 29: Vaiko’s MDMK today pulled out of the BJP-led coalition, robbing Atal Bihari Vajpayee of another Dravidian ally and adding a ticklish element to the Congress’ drive to forge a secular front.

Parroting the DMK, which had walked out of the central coalition a little over a week ago, Vaiko’s MDMK cited the BJP’s “subtle” attempts at a rapprochement with Jayalalithaa as one of the reasons for the pullout.

Another decisive factor was the Centre’s “indifference” to the prolonged incarceration of Vaiko by the Jayalalithaa government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Vaiko has already spent over 500 days in prison since his arrest in July last year for openly supporting the banned LTTE at a public meeting near Madurai.

However, like the DMK, the MDMK will offer “issue-based” support to the central coalition for the time being.

The withdrawal by the MDMK, which has four MPs, and the DMK, which has 11, is unlikely to affect the stability of the Vajpayee-led government. The central coalition has the support of over 286 MPs now, well above the effective majority mark of 272.

But it has quickened the pace of a political realignment, which began crystallising after Sonia Gandhi declared that she would spare no effort to put together an alliance.

Sources said Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar is likely to call on DMK leader M. Karunanidhi in Chennai in the next few days to discuss the possibility of an alliance.

Aiyar was among the first high-profile Congressmen to welcome Karunanidhi’s decision to quit the NDA.

Aiyar, who was assaulted by alleged ADMK supporters recently while returning from a meeting at which Jayalalithaa had publicly chided him for an article he had written, shares a good rapport with Karunanidhi. The Congress MP had called on the DMK leader soon after the assault.

The sources said that with the new state Congress chief, G.K. Vasan, still inexperienced, the high command has picked Aiyar to set the ball rolling.

After Aiyar’s visit, former DMK minister T.R. Baalu is likely to call on Sonia in Delhi, the sources said.

The DMK is not averse in principle to a tie-up with the Congress, but seat-sharing could pose a challenge. Karunanidhi has to share the 40 Lok Sabha seats (from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry) with the CPM and the CPI, too.

But what could be tricky is the MDMK’s announcement to sever links with the NDA and continue its “friendly ties” with Big Brother DMK.

The Congress will find it difficult to accommodate a party that has been accused of being soft on the LTTE, which assassinated Rajiv Gandhi.

Commenting on the sensitive issue, MDMK presidium chairman L. Ganesan said: “We do not feel that the LTTE issue will be a stumbling block in the formation of a secular front.”

“In Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi will be the leader of the alliance,” Ganesan added, hinting that the MDMK will focus on highlighting its ties with the DMK, not the other allies of the bigger partner.

A way also could be found using the Left parallel. The CPM had once asked the MDMK not to raise the LTTE issue on platforms the two parties shared.

Ganesan said the pullout from the NDA was inevitable under the “changing circumstances in both the state and national politics”, and in the backdrop of the party’s position not to take an adversarial line towards the DMK.

Ganesan said that with the BJP leadership having sent a “subtle message” in the last few days that it was not averse to renewing ties with Jayalalithaa’s ADMK, “any further continuance of the MDMK in the NDA would seriously erode our political credibility”.

The MDMK had first aligned with the BJP in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls.

Sources in the BJP said there has been no response from Jayalalithaa yet to the initial feelers. They said the ADMK could be waiting for the picture to become clearer at the BJP’s national executive meeting in Hyderabad in January.