Congress workers optimistic move will lead to alliance with 'natural ally' AIADMK.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s congratulatory call to AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa for her party’s landslide victory in Tamil Nadu assembly polls has sparked speculation in political circles, especially since the Congress and AIADMK are seen as natural allies.
Though the Congress has been in an alliance with the DMK since 2004, not many from the Congress are happy with it, a party leader said. “It is impossible to get along with the DMK because of the arrogance of their leaders,” he said. “We are more comfortable with the AIADMK.”
Gandhi spoke to Jayalalithaa on Saturday night. “She called up all leaders who have won the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam,” a senior Congress leader said. Political analysts rate Gandhi’s call as a strategic move because in the 2014 parliamentary election, she will need to tie-up with a party that is governing Tamil Nadu. The last time Gandhi and Jayalalithaa came face to face was during a 1998 tea party organised by Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy as part of his mission to bring down the then NDA government in which the AIADMK was the major constituent.
But the bonhomie between the two ladies was short-lived and collapsed. Relations got vitiated further when Jayalalithaa declared in 2004 that she would not allow Italian-born Sonia to become prime minister of India.
Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan evaded the issue of a possible future alliance between the Congress and the AIADMK, saying such decisions are taken by the high command.
At the peak of the 2G scam, Jayalalithaa asked the Congress to dump the DMK. However, the Congress stuck with DMK, for which the party paid a heavy price in the assembly election.
—With agency inputs
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