The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Allies rally round DMK

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Allies rally round DMK

K.V. Prasad

NEWSANALYSIS Meet, occasion to express solidarity

COIMBATORE: After the reverses suffered by the party in the recent byelections, the two-day zonal conference of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) here on May 28 and 29 served as a platform to prepare it for the battle ahead in the 2006 Assembly polls.

For the parties in the Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA), the conference was an occasion to express solidarity with the DMK.

Between Dindigul and Coimbatore (the two conferences), the DMK lost Gummidipoondi and Kancheepuram. But speakers here disagreed with post-poll analyses that the two seats mattered.

State leaders of alliance parties even questioned the wisdom of holding just two seats politically significant ``when all 234 will be won by the DPA in 2006.'' The collective opinion was that there was no ghost of bypolls to be exorcised.

However, with DMK and alliance parties' leaders harping on the bypoll reverses, there was more than a mere hint that the Coimbatore conference did have a specific issue to address: how to put the results behind and move ahead?

DMK members pointed out that the large turnout on the final day — when both party president M. Karunanidhi and deputy general secretary M.K. Stalin, spoke — proved the party's conviction that nothing had been lost by way of Gummidipoondi and Kancheepuram.

Mr. Stalin went on to illustrate how Opposition parties won byelections in an atmosphere of democracy during other regimes, unlike now. He suggested that the DMK had not lost but the rival camp retained the seats through ``undemocratic methods.''

Statements such as ``ours is a winning combination'' and ``this front will last in New Delhi and Tamil Nadu'' by leaders of the allies were aimed at disproving theories that the bypoll results would break up the DPA.

Stressing that the alliance should march forward with renewed vigour, the allies called upon the cadres to get on to the field immediately to prepare for the tough battle ahead.

They even declared that the conference would prove a turning point in the State's political history, predicting that the DPA win in the Assembly elections would be as resounding as the one in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

Mr. Karunanidhi, however, had a word of caution for party workers.

Referring to the fire that was averted during the morning session on the second day, he said: ``The flame (in a chandelier) serves as a piece of advice to the workers of all the parties. When we fail to notice certain things, incidents like Gummudipoondi and Kancheepuram happen.''

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu