Speculations are rife that the alliance may be in trouble, after Cong leaders openly criticised the DMK over local body polls, and DMK skipped an anti-CAA meeting called by Cong.
Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president KS Alagiri said on Tuesday that the DMK and Congress are like ‘joined hands’ amidst speculation that there was a rift between the alliance partners. “With regard to the alliance (with the DMK), I spoke to our party head. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Congress are two joined hands. Tamil Nadu Congress and DMK, I and Thalapathy Stalin, share similar ideologies. We are joined hands and should not separate,” KS Alagiri said, speaking to the media.
The statement came a day after the DMK skipped an anti-CAA meeting held by the Congress in New Delhi. This, despite the fact that the party’s senior leader and MP TR Baalu was present in the capital on the day of the meeting.
According to reports, the DMK was upset with TN Congress leaders for alleging that the DMK was not distributing rural local body posts equitably. On Friday, KS Alagiri and another party leader, KR Ramaswamy, had issued a joint statement criticising the DMK. The state Congress leaders had stated that out of a total of 27 district panchayat chief posts, not a single post had been allotted to them.
Responding to the complaints, DMK chief MK Stalin had earlier said, “We have been supporting Congress and in fact, we gave away seats which we wanted to contest in the Lok Sabha elections to Congress.”
Following this, the DMK skipped the meeting which had been organised in Delhi by party president Sonia Gandhi. In addition to DMK, other parties which were not present at the meeting included the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Trinamool Congress, and BSP.
Source: The News Minute