The Congress-DMK partnership had soured in the last couple of days after Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress was open for post-poll alliances.
The Congress-DMK partnership had soured in the last couple of days after Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress was open for post-poll alliances, in a seeming overture to DMK archrival, AIADMK. But as Tamil Nadu goes to poll this Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said all the right things to put up a united front.
“DMK has been our ally in Tamil Nadu for the past five years and we will fight the elections together,” Singh said. But in response to a question on whether the Congress would reach out to AIADMK after the polls, Singh was diplomatic, “As of now we are fighting this election in the company of DMK.”
Singh, who had recently stated that regional parties were a hindrance to the country’s growth, said that the remarks were casual. “I would like to clarify that I do recognise that regional parties are a fact of life and we have to come to terms with that and co-exist with them,” he added.
The PM also criticised the media for reading too much into RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and LJP’s Ram Vilas Paswan skipping Friday’s Cabinet meet, saying the rift was a creation of the press. “Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Mani Shankar Aiyar too did not attend the meet. That does not mean they are unhappy. Their skipping the meet doesn’t indicate any disagreement,” Singh said.
Addressing the sticky Sri Lankan issue, Singh emphasised that India was doing what it could to help the beleaguered Tamil community in the country to lead “a life of dignity and honour”. He added that the Indian government’s topmost concern was to provide relief and succour to the mass of Tamil civilians displaced from the truncated war zone still held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Manmohan Singh emphasised that any solution to the conflict in the island nation needed to be found “within a unified Sri Lanka”. Without taking names, the prime minister ridiculed Tamil Nadu politicians who have threatened to send the Indian Army to Sri Lanka to carve out an independent Tamil state.
“What is possible and what is not possible is a matter of speculation,” he said. “We are dealing with a sovereign country. It is not easy to march armies to a sovereign state. There is a certain thing called international law. I think these are all known to all those who are making these tall promises.”
He denied that the Congress-led government had not shown enough interest over the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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