New Delhi:
After days of playing Deal or No Deal, the Congress and DMK have decided they'll stick together for the Tamil Nadu elections.
The DMK has surrendered to the Congress' demand for 63 seats. The DMK will part with 61 of those, and the other two will be taken from the DMK's regional allies. So far, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu has been provided external support by the Congress. If the alliance wins this election, the Congress wants a share in power.
DMK leader M K Alagiri said, "Out of 234 seats in Tamil Nadu, Congress will contest 63. This is a winning alliance."
In Chennai, DMK chief M Krunanidhi said, "Today is a happy day for us."
Despite much posturing by the DMK, it's been clear that it's the Congress who has been calling the shots in the negotiations. On Saturday night, after talks broke down, the DMK, sounding like a jilted lover, said the party would quit the UPA government at the Centre, where it has 18 MPs and six union ministers.
DMK leaders said "It appears the Congress wants us out" and waited for the Congress to jump to attention. That never happened. So the DMK got more aggressive and announced that its ministers would fly into Delhi yesterday to hand their resignation letters to the Prime Minister. Pranab Mukherjee staged an intervention on behalf of the Congress, working the phone and meeting with senior DMK leaders like Dayanidhi Maran and MK Alagiri, whose father is DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi also met with Mr Maran and Mr Alagiri last night, but the talks did not achieve a compromise.
This morning, even as both parties insisted that the situation was "status quo," it was clear that both parties had shelved the idea that their differences were irreconcilable. Mr Mukerhjee and Mr Maran met again this afternoon to find a solution. Mr Karunandihi's daughter, Kanimozhi, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, was deputed to Delhi and said "I am hopeful" after she arrived in the capital.
She also denied that the real stress test for her party's relationship with the Congress has been the massive investigation into the 2G spectrum scam, which threatens high-profile casualties among the DMK. A Raja, a prized DMK Dalit leader, has been arrested for gifting spectrum to telecom companies at throwaway prices in 2008 when he was Telecom Minister. Since then, the CBI has raided several people who are close associates of the DMK's First Family. Sources in the CBI say that Kanimozhi is likely to be interrogated soon, on the grounds that a 200-crore kickback from a company favoured by Mr Raja flowed into a TV channel in Chennai owned largely by her stepmother and her. She has denied the allegations.