CHENNAI: Differences between Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president M. Krishnasswamy and Congress Working Committee member M. Veerappa Moily, who is in charge of party affairs in the State, have come out in the open.

Though both the leaders were not seeing eye-to-eye for the last few months, their differences surfaced publicly on Monday with Mr. Krishnasswamy criticising Mr. Moily for not allowing him to function independently.

Preparatory step

It all started with the TNCC president announcing district-level observers to assess the party's strength in the various Corporations and municipalities in view of the coming local body elections in the State. This, according to Mr. Krishnasswamy, was a preparatory step for the polls. The observer list included workers belonging to "various factions" in the party. But Mr. Moily did not approve it. Upset by Mr. Moily's rejection of the list, Mr. Krishnasswamy charged him with interfering even in petty issues. The TNCC president said he had announced the list to get a feedback. Based on the observers' reports the party would "bargain" with other constituents of the Democratic Progressive Alliance during seat-sharing talks, he said. "Unfortunately Mr. Moily is trying to scuttle the move," he alleged.

Ad hoc committees

Similarly, Mr. Moily did not approve the ad hoc committees appointed by him in districts where there was no district president.

The committees were only a temporary arrangement till a full-fledged DCC team was appointed.

Mr. Krishnasswamy said he found it difficult to function in the absence of DCC office-bearers and wanted the Congress high command to announce a new set of office-bearers at the earliest.

However, Mr. Moily denied that he had not given his approval for the observers list. In fact, he did not want to disturb the present arrangement. He had only asked the TNCC president to appoint a State-level coordination committee to work out a strategy for the local body elections. (This was denied by Mr. Krishnasswamy who said that he had not received any such letter from Mr. Moily.)

Similarly, Mr. Moily said he had asked the PCC president to send proposals for appointing DCC presidents wherever there was a vacancy.

He ruled out the appointment of a new set of office-bearers till the local body polls were over.

Announcement of party office-bearers with local body elections round the corner would only create confusion among the party workers, he said.

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