The TMC and the Congress

THE PACE AT which the Congress president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, acted in nominating the trustees to govern the properties owned by the TNCC Trust (hitherto controlled by G. K. Moopanar and Mr. N. Ramasamy Udayar) which has been read negatively by the TMC's new leadership seems to have raised some hurdles in the path of the TMC's merger into the Congress. Mr. G. K. Vasan, new president of the TMC, will now be under pressure from those within the party's ranks who oppose a merger for their own reasons. But then, Ms. Sonia Gandhi really had no other option. That the trust was left with Mr. Udayar alone as trustee (against the statutory requirement that there are at least three trustees at any given time), and given that Mr. Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthy had taken the dispute to the Madras High Court, necessitated immediate steps. Ms. Sonia Gandhi's action will have to be understood in this context. It makes sense for all those in the TMC, including Mr. Vasan, to look at the developments in a dispassionate fashion rather than reacting emotionally. The fact is that the trustees had to be nominated without any delay to prevent the properties (that include the headquarters of the TMC) being handed over to an appointee of the courts.

Be that as it may, there are far more substantive aspects that render it imperative for the TMC to merge with the Congress. Moopanar, even after he had parted ways with the party high command (in April 1996), had doggedly refused to convert the TMC into an anti-Congress platform in Tamil Nadu. In this sense, the TMC had only supplanted the Congress in the State. And there was hardly any occasion when the TMC differed sharply from the ideological orientation of the Congress. It is also a fact that the Congress as a party (whether it was headed by Sitaram Kesri or by Ms. Sonia Gandhi after him) had been careful to desist from any strategy (in Tamil Nadu) that would estrange Moopanar even if that meant the undermining of its own State unit. In this sense, the TNCC was reduced to playing second fiddle to the TMC when it came to dealing with either of the Dravidian parties. It may be true that the Congress leadership had made a virtue of necessity. After all, the TMC as an outfit was larger than the TNCC in terms of organisational presence as well as support base. But then, it is also a fact that the TMC became what it was only because it was led by Moopanar.

In this sense, the political space that the Congress had occupied (until 1996) and then the TMC seems to be falling vacant. And to expect that Mr. Vasan, despite the goodwill and clear sympathy that he may enjoy within the TMC's party establishment, will be able to galvanise the ranks (and more importantly the support base) in the same way as Moopanar could seems unrealistic. The mature political thinking that Moopanar had displayed when he steered the TMC away from any association with the BJP or its allies in Tamil Nadu was what helped the platform remain relevant in Tamil Nadu. Mr. Vasan who is a political novice can hardly rise to such heights. The new TMC president, after all, has not had the long years of experience or the association with the Congress as a party as did his late father. And given this, there is the danger of the TMC being reduced to an appendage of one or another of the Dravidian parties (the AIADMK at the moment) in the years to come. Given this larger context, the party's merger with the Congress will make immense sense not only in terms of the individual stakes of its leaders but also in terms of any meaningful attempt to revive the Congress as a platform in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, the Congress high command must make the gesture of indicating that those who are part of the TMC establishment will be accommodated in the new setup.

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