Cong plays down DMK ruling out alliance for LS poll

Congress today played down DMK ruling out any alliance with it for 2014 Lok Sabha polls, saying there was "nothing new" in this "late announcement" as the "alliance was broken long back".
Party spokesperson P C Chacko at the same time said "what will happen in future is something nobody can predict."
"It is a very late announcement. The alliance was broken long time back...We will take it for granted, no problem. There is nothing new in the announcement. They had walked out of the government long time back," Chacko told reporters here.
The party's response came amid speculation that Congress was eyeing tie-up with Vijaykant's DMDK in the state and is resigned to the possibility of no DMK-Congress alliance for next Lok Sabha polls.

A Congress leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the announcement by DMK chief Karunanidhi was "anticipated".
Months after severing ties with Congress on Sri Lankan Tamils issue, Karunanidhi had on Sunday ruled out any alliance with it for next Lok Sabha polls.

Chacko, however, downplayed questions as to why Congress supported Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi's candidature in Rajya Sabha if it knew that there will be no future electoral tie-up with DMK.
"We were old friends. We did not have numbers to get our candidate elected. So, it was fair for us to give the support of our few members to a candidate from our old ally", he said.

Kanimozhi and junior colleague and former Telecom Minister A Raja were made accused in 2G spectrum scam and had to go to jail, which is speculated to be one of the reasons behind DMK's anger.
Chacko, however, dismissed it pointing out that no political party or its member even gave a notice in Parliament to discuss the 2 G report. "Nobody showed the guts to even discuss the report," he said.