Cong. formalises pact with AIADMK front

By Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI, MARCH 10. After weeks of procrastination, the Congress today formally announced its tie-up with the TMC and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. In Pondicherry, however, the Congress and the TMC will fight the AIADMK and PMK.

Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, AICC general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu, said the Congress and the Tamil Maanila Congress had been given 47 seats of which the Congress would contest 15. The combine could have done with some more seats, he added.

The Congress and the TMC would contest together in Pondicherry along with some other friendly parties, he said and expressed confidence that the combination would be able to form the Government on its own.

Mr. Azad was at pains to stress that the Congress had throughout the protracted negotiation process been consistent in its opposition to not having any truck or sharing power with the PMK. The party had to agree to the delinking of the Pondicherry issue because the AIADMK found it impossible to go back on its promise to the PMK.

The Congress sought to justify its stand saying it had been consistent in its demand of not being a part of any power- sharing arrangement with the PMK. In Tamil Nadu, Mr. Azad said, the question of sharing power did not arise as Ms. Jayalalitha had made it clear to both Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and himself, when they called on her at her Poes Garden residence in Chennai, that the AIADMK would not share power with any of its alliance partners. That was why the Congress decided to join the alliance keeping in view the larger goal of defeating ``the communal forces''. Mr. Azad, however, made it clear that in Pondicherry, where the BJP did not have a presence, his party would put up candidates against the PMK alliance.

The AICC leader put in a great deal of effort in trying to dispel the contradictions in the arrangement worked out. Under the deal, the seat-sharing arrangement in the secular front led by Ms. Jayalalitha was between the AIADMK and the different constituents of the alliance, not necessarily between all the constituents. He cited the precedent of the 1998 Lok Sabha polls where the Left parties and the Congress were a part of the same front but did not have any seat-sharing arrangement.

The Congress appeared reasonably pleased with the outcome in Tamil Nadu. Senior party leaders here claimed they had twin objectives from the very beginning and had managed to achieve both. ``We had always maintained that the TMC and the Congress would swim and sink together,'' and despite Ms. Jayalalitha's offer of 37 seats separately to the TMC, the president of that party, Mr. G. K. Moopanar, had refused to part company with the Congress. Similarly on the PMK front, the Congress leaders claimed they had stood their ground of not being a part of any power-sharing arrangement with the PMK. The additional bonus was that they had managed to increase their seat share to 15, from the ``measly number'' offered initially.

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