DMK member Kanimozhi has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking separate seating arrangements for her party MPs away from the Congress benches, declaring their alliance “has come to an end”.
Her letter, sent on Thursday following the Congress decision in Tamil Nadu to back actor Joseph Vijay’s TVK to help it form the government, exposes the fissures in the Opposition camp and casts a shadow over the INDIA bloc’s future.
The Tamil Nadu churn seems to have accelerated efforts by powerful regional players like the DMK, Samajwadi Party and Trinamool to explore a parallel axis of leadership within the Opposition, potentially reducing the Congress from the anchor of the INDIA bloc to just another player in it.
The DMK and the Samajwadis have 22 and 37 members in the Lok Sabha, while Trinamool has 28.
The Congress, which won five seats in the April Tamil Nadu polls as a DMK ally, has chosen to break ranks and support the TVK, the single largest party in a hung House. Congress leaders say the move is meant to “respect the people’s mandate” and keep the NDA out.
“I write to respectfully request suitable changes in the seating arrangement of the MPs belonging to the DMK in the Lok Sabha,” Kanimozhi’s letter to Birla says.
“In view of the changed political circumstances and as our alliance with the Indian National Congress has come to an end, it may not be appropriate for our Members to continue occupying the present seating arrangement alongside them in the House….”
Sources in the Lok Sabha secretariat confirmed receiving the letter and said the Speaker would take an appropriate decision.
Kanimozhi’s move carries both political and symbolic weight.
DMK House leader T.R. Baalu now shares a bench with leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Congress member K.C. Venugopal in the first Opposition row, with the other MPs of the two parties seated behind them in adjoining rows.
By seeking a visible parliamentary separation from the Congress, Kanimozhi’s letter appears to underscore apolitical rupture in the Opposition camp.
The letter became public knowledge on a day Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav delivered a sharp but indirect message to the Congress, underlining his commitment to alliance partners even during difficult times.
“Hum wo nahi jo mushkil me saath chhor de (We are not like those who abandon one in times of difficulty),” Akhilesh posted on X on Friday, along with photographs of him greeting Mamata Banerjee and DMK president M.K. Stalin.
The image with Mamata was taken when Akhilesh visited Calcutta on Thursday following Trinamool’s defeat in the Bengal Assembly elections. It was widely seen as a public display of Opposition solidarity outside the Congress framework.
Kanimozhi’s response — “Thank you for the solidarity and support @yadavakhilesh” — fuelled further speculation of a churn within the INDIA bloc.
The Samajwadis and the Congress had contested the last Lok Sabha polls in alliance. But the oblique swipe at the Congress from Akhilesh suggests the Tamil Nadu realignment can have a fallout in Uttar Pradesh, where Assembly elections are due early next year.
No senior Congress leader publicly responded either to Kanimozhi’s letter or the comments by Akhilesh. Rahul Gandhi remained occupied with the party’s ongoing Sadbhav Yatra in BJP-ruled Haryana, being held to highlight how the Modi government was “stoking the fire of hatred everywhere in the country”.
Congress MP Manickam Tagore, however, aggressively defended the party’s decision to back the TVK and trained the gun at the DMK, accusing it of flirting with rival AIADMK.
He claimed Rahul had called Mamata and backed her “publicly” the day the Assembly poll results were declared, and also dialled Stalin the same day.
“Congress supported TVK — to respect the people’s mandate, to form a stable government, to keep NDA out,” the MP said in a post on X.
“But DMK is talking to AIADMK. With BJP’s blessings. That’s practically NDA by another name. So tell me, should Congress have helped NDA come to power? TVK has been anti-BJP from day one. Congress stood with that. No apologies.”
The widening cracks in the INDIA bloc will please the BJP, which had faced an unusually coordinated attack from the Opposition during the recent budget session.
A united Opposition had embarrassed the government by defeating proposed amendments to the women’s reservation legislation that looked to tie the quota’s implementation to a delimitation exercise seen as favouring the BJP.