Moopanar to decide on TMC joining Gujral govt before Wednesday

N Sathiya Moorthy in Chennai

It will be a tough decision for G K Moopanar to take. Meeting against the backdrop of anti-United Front, anti-DMK sentiments, expressed through the burning of an effigy of Union Industry Minister Murasoli Maran in Madras on Sunday, the Tamil Maanila Congress executive authorised the party supremo to decide on its rejoining the government at the Centre.

"The meeting authorises party president G K Moopanar to take a decision on the TMC rejoining the government, after considering the ground situation, the political situation in Tamil Nadu, and the TMC's future," party spokesman A Gnaradesikan said, reading out the operative part of the resolution to a horde of mediapersons, waiting at Sathyamurthi Bhavan, the party headquarters, since Sunday morning.

Though Moopanar would not talk to mediapersons on his next course of action, circles close to him indicated that he might go to Delhi and discuss the issue with Prime Minister I K Gujral and other UF leaders, before taking a final decision. "However, the initiative naturally has to come from Delhi,", the source said, adding that the TMC decision should be known in a day or two, "and certainly before Parliament reconvenes on April 30".

The Lok Sabha is expected to take up the Budget and the Finance Bill for consideration and passage on April 30. The question now, is whether TMC leader Palaniappan Chidambaram himself will be there to pilot the Finance Bill, which along with the Budget has been "popular" and from which some TMC leaders at least would like the party to derive maximum political mileage. "This is possible only if we rejoin the government," a former minister of the party pointed out, himself being unsure as to what Moopanar's decision will be.

What seems to be weighing with Moopanar is the cadre sentiments, expressed in no uncertain terms by most of the speakers at Sunday's executive meeting, on the one hand, and the need for the TMC to stick on with the DMK in the state for some more time, before it is ready to take on its electoral opponents of all hues, on the other. Sunday's resolution, while congratulating Gujral on his becoming prime minister, and welcoming the TMC parliamentary party's decision not to join the government, underlined these concerns while authorising Moopanar to take a final decision.

"It's a tough decision for him to take," says a senior party functionary. "For all practical purposes, the cadre-level emotional link between the DMK and the TMC has snapped. Any decision by the TMC not to join the Gujral government would automatically lead to a snapping of ties with the DMK. The question is whether we are ready take on the DMK and AIADMK simultaneously, particularly if fresh elections are to be held to the Lok Sabha in the next year, when we will still have to prove ourselves."

According to him, this is a tougher decision than splitting the Congress and forming the TMC last year. "Then, we had only to decide on the immediate course as our electoral victory in the company of the DMK was a sure thing. That's not the case now, and there are too many imponderables."

Most speakers on Sunday argued that the TMC should continue to support the UF government from outside. "Having taken up the 'self-respect' and 'distrust' cards effectively, we will be laughed at if we go back on them, in favour of joining the ministry," a senior leader said, summing up the trend of the speeches made.

Some speakers also reportedly referred to the doubts about the longevity of the Gujral government, aired even by its Leftist sponsors, and asked, what great purpose would be served by going back on the party's public stand. Some even suggested that if the Leftists could dictate terms to the United Front from outside, the TMC too could do the same, if it came to that.

In comparison, the pro-ministerialists did not have any substantive arguments to put forward. Other than saying that the party will do well to have its ministers at the right place in its growth pace, they could not counter the points raised by the others, most of them coming from the organisational wing and speaking the cadre mood. So much so, even some known pro-DMK legislators of the party went to the other extreme, that the TMC should also decide to snap ties with the DMK and chart out its own course in case it decided not to join the government at the Centre.

The mood in the upper echelons of the party was also confusing. Ministerial hopefuls, including some of the outgoing men, were sullen-faced, and are sure to take it up with Moopanar. But a distinctive change of mood was visible among some of them, at least.

For instance, a party MP with ministerial hope, who until Saturday favoured the TMC joining the Gujral team, asked at the end of Sunday's deliberations: "What will we lose if we stay out? What will we lose if we snap ties with the DMK? Yes, there will be electoral problems in the absence of a strong ally, particularly when we are aspiring to become the ruling party in the state, but have we not weathered worse storms in the last 30 years and more ever since the Congress lost power in the 1967 elections?"

Adds the MP, "Maybe, we will have to wait for our turn in the state, but that cannot be compromised at the cost of an issue that is close to the heart of the cadres, and the people, in turn."

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