Chennai:
Post the Tamil Nadu elections, the Congress faced a dilemma: either to stick to its decades-old ally, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, or usher in change by backing Vijay’s TVK and disrupting the deeply entrenched Dravidian duopoly. That the party walked the second path has now jeopardised the opposition’s ambitious INDIA alliance in the state, with the DMK apparently punishing the Mallikarjun Kharge-led outfit for “betrayal”.
Miffed with the Congress’ decision to extend support to Vijay, the DMK has declared it will not attend the June 8 meeting of the bloc in Delhi. The MK Stalin-led party, however, stopped short of announcing an exit from the alliance, marked by internal contradiction similar to that of Tamil Nadu.
In a statement, the DMK clarified that while it won’t attend alliance meetings attended by the Congress over the latter’s “betrayal”, it will support opposition initiatives championed by other parties in the bloc.
DMK said in the statement that its cadres were deeply hurt by the Congress’ post-election political realignment in Tamil Nadu. Though the statement did not explicitly name the Congress’ decision to join the ruling TVK-led coalition government, it repeatedly referred to the “betrayal” suffered by it after the Assembly polls.
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