The Dravida Mennetra Kazhagam, and the Congress, which had serious differences over the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils, yesterday said they would ally for the forthcoming assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
Congress leader and former central minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and DMK leader M K Stalin announced their decision to contest the assembly elections together.
However, no decision has been taken on the important aspect of seat-sharing, the leaders said.
The decision to join hands and take on the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and others came after an hour-long meeting between the Congress team led by Azad and DMK chief M Karunanidhi his residence here.
“We are sure of forming the government under Karunanidhi’s leadership along with other parties,” Azad told reporters.
This time around the talks between the two parties were cordial as against the mood when the Congress negotiated for 63 seats during the 2011 assembly elections. The DMK had subsequently parted ways with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and DMK fought separately and the former drew blank in all the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu.
The president of Congress’s Tamil Nadu unit E V K S Elangovan and the party’s in charge for the state Mukul Wasnik accompanied Azad.
According to Azad, it does not matter whether the party will share power with the DMK or lend support from outside (as was the case in the past) - the goal is to form the government.
He said the number of seats that the Congress would contest would be decided later.
Azad said the DMK will decide on admitting other parties into the alliance.
“The Congress has promised full co-operation. Mr Karunanidhi has already given an invite to the DMDK. We are hopeful of a positive response,” Stalin said.
He said the alliance between the Congress and DMK has been sealed while the sharing of seats was not discussed.
Asked what had changed between 2013 and 2016 when the DMK snapped ties accusing the Congress of betraying Sri Lankan Tamils, Azad said that there were “compulsions and pressures” in politics and that the two parties had won elections together in the past as well.
The DMK-Congress split had also come against the backdrop of the arrests of former telecom minister A Raja and Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha MP, in the spectrum allocation scam.
The Congress Party in the state has been weakened with the exit of G K Vasan and other leaders. The party is out of power in the key southern state for nearly five decades and has generally been aligning with either of the Dravidian party - DMK or AIADMK. It has contested alone too but without much success.