Chennai:
The Left parties on Thursday terminated a short-lived alliance with the AIADMK after J Jayalalithaa refused to give in to their demand for six seats in a seat-sharing pact in Tamil Nadu.
The rupture in relations between the two sides came less than a fortnight after 11 parties stitched up a third front to take on the Congress and the BJP in the general elections beginning next month, and marks the beginning of the unraveling of the alternative formation experiment.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister had told the CPM and CPI that she was willing to give them only a seat apiece to contest in her state. The Left parties had in February announced that they were extending to this year's elections, their alliance with her AIADMK in the assembly elections three years ago.
On her 66th birthday last week, Ms Jayalalithaa seemed to have forgotten that pact when she released a list of party candidates for all the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and the one seat in Puducherry. But she later said there would be changes to factor in her seat-sharing deal with the Left.
As news of the Left and AIADMK parting ways came, Ms Jayalalithaa's arch rival M Karunanidhi of the DMK made an offer. "We will accept CPI and CPM in alliance if they come," he said.
When leaders of 11 regional parties met in Delhi on February 25 to announce the alternative front being mentored by the Left, Ms Jayalalithaa did not attend. She sent a representative.
Cracks were visible even as leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) put up a show of strength.
Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal, or the BJD, and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) skipped the meeting.
Ms Jayalalithaa, like many other constituents of that front, has prime ministerial ambitions.
She has also been assiduously wooed by Narendra Modi's BJP, which, surveys predict, could emerge as the single largest party but short of a majority and is likely to scout for allies post the national elections.
The rupture in relations between the two sides came less than a fortnight after 11 parties stitched up a third front to take on the Congress and the BJP in the general elections beginning next month, and marks the beginning of the unraveling of the alternative formation experiment.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister had told the CPM and CPI that she was willing to give them only a seat apiece to contest in her state. The Left parties had in February announced that they were extending to this year's elections, their alliance with her AIADMK in the assembly elections three years ago.
On her 66th birthday last week, Ms Jayalalithaa seemed to have forgotten that pact when she released a list of party candidates for all the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and the one seat in Puducherry. But she later said there would be changes to factor in her seat-sharing deal with the Left.
As news of the Left and AIADMK parting ways came, Ms Jayalalithaa's arch rival M Karunanidhi of the DMK made an offer. "We will accept CPI and CPM in alliance if they come," he said.
When leaders of 11 regional parties met in Delhi on February 25 to announce the alternative front being mentored by the Left, Ms Jayalalithaa did not attend. She sent a representative.
Cracks were visible even as leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) put up a show of strength.
Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal, or the BJD, and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) skipped the meeting.
Ms Jayalalithaa, like many other constituents of that front, has prime ministerial ambitions.
She has also been assiduously wooed by Narendra Modi's BJP, which, surveys predict, could emerge as the single largest party but short of a majority and is likely to scout for allies post the national elections.
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