Cracks in Cong, DMK alliance visible in plenary

Cracks in the Congress-Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam alliance were evident at the second day of the All India Congress Committee plenary session in New Delhi on Monday with a series of back door meetings being held in this regard.

An emergency meeting comprising Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and Tamil Nadu Pradesh Congress Committee chief Thangabalu was held back stage where the DMK issue was discussed.

In addition to this, some of the Tamil Nadu leaders sought clarity on the issue and said that there is a need to distance them from the DMK since they felt that the association was tarnishing the image of the party.

They also complained that questions were being asked and some of them found themselves in an embarrassing position.

The ball was however set rolling when Manicka Tagore, Congress member of Parliament from Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu, warned that it would not be right to blindly accept the DMK alliance.

Sources said that during the meeting on Sunday night in Delhi it was said that some Congress leaders were apprehensive about continuing the alliance with the DMK in the wake of the 2G spectrum scam which specifically had the names of DMK leaders A Raja and Kanimozhi.

The Congress feels that the people have started asking questions about the alliance and the image of the party should not be allowed to suffer due to one alliance from one state.

The meeting also discussed the recent observations by the Supreme Court of on the 2G scam. The leaders said that there is a need to protect the image of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and hence the party should distance itself from the DMK.

However some leaders, including Thangabalu, were not in favour of immediately snapping ties with the DMK and said that there was already a move within the DMK to drop Kanimozhi and Raja.

They felt that it would be better to wait for the DMK to act on its own rather than any Congress initiation.

However, the DMK is a divided house over the issue. While a section of the DMK feels that they should drop the two scam-tainted leaders, there is resistance from party supremo and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi over the matter.