Sulk over, TMC may rejoin UF

Tamil Maanila Congress president G K Moopanar softened his stand towards the United Front government on Saturday, declaring that the controversy over his failure to become prime minister was over as far as he was concerned.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters on the eve of the party's executive meeting to decide whether to join the Gujral government or not, Moopanar said he had no regrets about not being elected prime minister. I K Gujral was a better choice and he (Moopanar) had extended his best wishes to him.

He praised Gujral, saying, "I wish him well. He is in fact a better choice than me." He did not share the pessimism of the Left as expressed since by Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, that fresh polls to the Lok Sabha could not be avoided.

Asked why his party decided to keep away from the government immediately after Gujral was picked to head the new government, Moopanar said the TMC parliamentary party had taken this step because some Front partners had questioned its credentials.

He said he did not like to blame any party for their viewpoints, claiming each one had its own compulsions to take the stand it finally did. Moopanar said he had no regrets that he lost the prime ministerial position just because he was considered closer to the Congress or to Sonia Gandhi.

He pointed out that he had ceased to be a Congress member last March, when he floated the TMC. He said he was sorry that his Congress past and his contacts with Sonia Gandhi were being raised occasionally.

"I have apologised to Mrs Sonia Gandhi that her name too got caught in the controversy because mine was proposed for prime ministership."

"I was not a candidate for the prime ministership," he reiterated. If on earlier occasions, he had declined the offer, this time round, he did not do so, Moopanar said, adding that there were public requests for him not to decline any offer that came his way. That did not mean he was begging support for his candidature.

About the executive committee meeting on Sunday, he said "There is only one issue before the committee, and that relates to the party rejoining the UF," Moopanar said.

"There will be no 'guided debates' at tomorrow's (Sunday's) meeting," Moopanar clarified, saying that the party's MPs, MLAs and district-level office-bearers will be given full freedom to express themselves on the issue at hand.

Asked whether the TMC intended breaking ties with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, he said, "That is a policy issue, and will not be discussed at the meeting." He claimed ignorance about attacks by some TMC legislators on the Karunanidhi government.

"Karunanidhi told me he had proposed my name as the first choice, and Gujral's as the second," the TMC supremo said, adding, "There is no reason for me to suspect that."

Asked about some UF leaders who consistently opposed the Congress, he said, "Numbers do not justify any anti-Congressism... Ours is not a pre-poll coalition, only a post-poll adjustment, and we have come together on the secularism plank, opposing the BJP."