The DMK has been boycotting events headed by the Congress recently, the biggest of which was a protest led by Chief Minister Narayanswamy against Kiran Bedi.
The rift in the DMK-Congress alliance in Puducherry is out in the open ahead of the Assembly polls expected in a couple of months. While skirmishes and friction between the two parties was seen for the last three months, on Monday, the DMK launched a frontal attack against its long-term ally in the Union Territory.
According to sources in the DMK, Arakkonam MP S Jagathrakshagan is set to become the Puducherry in-charge for the party, given his influence in the Union territory. While addressing the party cadre from the Puducherry unit, Jagathrakshagan made aggressive statements and even claimed that, “If DMK doesn’t win all 30 seats in the upcoming assembly elections, I will die by suicide on this stage’. In addition to hinting that the party will look to contest as many seats as possible, Jagathrakshakan also added that alliance between the two parties will be led by the DMK.
Jagathrakshagan’s business interests in Puducherry reportedly includes educational institutes and hotels. “We (DMK) will bring change and strength to Puducherry that will make people’s heads turn. With Thalapathy’s order, this will happen under the DMK leadership’s alliance,” said Jagathrakshakan. “God is in Chennai, he has to decide. If we don’t win all 30 constituencies, I will take my own life on this stage,” he added.
These statements were made by the MP on the very same day that his party’s MLA boycotted the Puducherry Assembly’s first session in 2021 where resolutions were passed against the farm laws. The Union territory currently has 15 Congress MLAs, two DMK MLAs, eight All India NR Congress MLAs, four AIADMK MLAs and one independent MLA. The Congress and DMK contested the election together in 2016, and the national party requires the regional party’s two MLAs to stay in power. The DMK however, has been boycotting events headed by the Congress recently, the biggest of which was a protest led by Chief Minister Narayanswamy against Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi.
“DMK functionaries and MLAs in Puducherry feel slighted and believe that they are not being given due importance. There is a rift at the functionary level,” says a source in the DMK. “However a lot of this aggression remains posturing. If we put pressure in Puducherry, we believe that they will back down on the number of seats they want in Tamil Nadu,” he adds.
As far as reports of Jagathrakshakan possibly being projected as the DMK’s CM candidate in Puducherry are concerned, sources deny that such a scenario will present itself. “We have been in an alliance with the Congress in Puducherry for decades now and it is not the time to destabilise this completely,” says the source.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President KS Alagiri told DT Next that the issue at hand is not a political issue but a local dispute. Local Congress leaders in Puducherry meanwhile simply said they are aware of the problem at hand, and that discussions to handle the matter were underway.
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Source: The News Minute