Jayalalitha's final offer to TMC

By Suresh Nambath

CHENNAI, FEB. 22. The AIADMK-Congress alliance appears on the verge of collapse with the AIADMK general secretary, Ms. Jayalalitha, today increasing the seats on offer for the Tamil Maanila Congress to 32 in an AIADMK-led front minus the Congress.

Even as the TNCC president, Mr. E.V.K.S. Elangovan, left for New Delhi to push for a third front, Ms. Jayalalitha made a ``take-it or leave-it'' offer of 32 constituencies to the TMC in case that party is willing to join the secular front without the Congress.

The TMC president, Mr. G.K. Moopanar, has been given time till tomorrow to accept or reject the renewed offer. The earlier offer was 30 seats for the TMC and five for the Congress. The Tiruchi Lok Sabha seat, earlier left to the Congress, would be kept by the AIADMK and not allotted to the TMC.

According to AIADMK leaders, an exit of the Congress from the secular front would solve many problems in seat negotiations confronting Ms. Jayalalitha. One, there are more seats to distribute among other important allies. Two, there is greater maneouvring room in Pondicherry where a key ally, the PMK, wants to head the next government.

Highly-placed AIADMK sources said the revised offer was intended to erase the impression that Ms. Jayalalitha was ``tough and unrelenting'' in seat negotiations.

The AIADMK reasoning is that the TMC strength did not warrant anything more than 15 seats in Tamil Nadu. However, the party wanted to retain the TMC in order to ensure ``a sweep''for the secular front in the election. Even without the TMC, the AIADMK expects to win a majority of the seats though with relatively lower margins. In AIADMK's opinion, even if the TMC walks out of the front, the DMK would get not more than 25 seats. Although Mr. Moopanar is taking his time to weigh the implications of joining a Congress-less secular front, the AIADMK leaders said the 32 seats number is the final offer and any delay in accepting it might lead to a split of the TMC into pro-DMK and pro-AIADMK camps. ``We are extending a lifeline to the TMC,'' they said.

Ridiculing the TMC claims to contest as many seats as the number of its sitting MLAs, the AIADMK leaders said there could be no comparison between the 1996 election and 2001 elections. ``By those standards, we won only four seats in 1996. But, it is the other parties which are coming to us now for seats,'' a senior AIADMK functionary said.

While claiming that several Congressmen were joining the AIADMK now, the AIADMK seniors maintained that the impact of the loss of the Congress as an ally would almost be nil. In any case, there was no space for both the TMC and the Congress in the secular front as both parties were demanding a large number of seats. The Congress was given a generous share of seats in the 1999 election as the choice for the prime ministership was between Mr. A.B. Vajpayee and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Now, however, the choice before the voters was between the Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi and Ms. Jayalalitha. As a polarisation was likely, those parties not in either of the two fronts would become irrelevant, AIADMK leaders argued.

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