New Delhi, March 6 : While the DMK leaders do not say so in so many words, the fact remains that the 2G spectrum issue has blown up in the face of the already strained DMK-Congress alliance.
"Unlike tantrum queen Jayalalithaa, who kept the Vajpayee government in 1998 on tenterhooks right from day one only to pull the rug within 10 months, the DMK helped both the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments to complete their full term in peace. The party now feels that it cannot pay the price of being dependable. Any many in Tamil Nadu feel that the DMK should have done this much earlier", writes Chennai-based journalist A S Paneerselvam in Mail Today.
"Karunanidhi who has a six-decade long political experience and a 53 years history in the legislature, was subjected to a humiliating ever-shifting goalpost by the Congress team led by P Chidambaram. The toughening of the Congress stand can be gauged by last midnight's statement of Karunanidhi: "After having agreed to 60 seats, is it proper on the part of Congress to demand 63 seats now and, on top of that, say that it would contest the elections in constituencies of its choice?"", writes Paneerselvan
"The DMK's decision to go alone is borne by the fact that the Congress has no real base in the state and its electoral performance since 1977 is based purely on the electoral support extended to it by either the DMK or the AIADMK. The DMK, whether the Delhi leadership has the wisdom to notice or not, was responsible for the political stability in the country since 1996 when it joined the UF government", writes the author.
"The uneasy relationshio between the two parties took a turn for the worse over the Congress' handling of the fallout of the 2G spectrum scam. Right from the beginning, the DMK was supporting the opposition's demand for JPC, but the Congress opted for a messy route which first led to Raja's resignation, the Supreme Court's harsh observations, and extremely damaging media campaign. Despite the damage this created to the UPA-II, the Congress could not avoid the JPC.
"Despite these embarassing realities, the DMK decided to stick with the Congress because of the personal equation between Karunanidhi and Sonia Gandhi. But when the section of Congressmen started believing in their own propaganda that DMK is on a weak wicket and that DMK needs Congress now more than ever to deal with the 2G case, predictably the DMK got infuriated over the national party's idiocy.
"The DMK felt that the lessons from the Bihar debacle would make the Congress see sense and that its attitude towards the most dependable ally would change. But the Congress was getting tougher by the day. It started a campaign through various state-level leaders demanding about 90 seats out of the total 234 seats
and also a five-point formula for seat sharing.", writes Paneerselvam.
