Strong tie-up still elusive for DMK, BJP and Cong

With the DMK, Congress and BJP still scouting for allies in Tamil Nadu, there seems to be no clarity on political parties that would join hands to emerge as a formidable combine to fight the Lok Sabha polls against the ruling AIADMK camp.
AIADMK headed by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is all set to go for the election as the party has already sewed up an alliance with the Left parties.
Though DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi had said his party "would not align with the Congress" in the Lok Sabha elections as it was an "ungrateful" ally, talks are recently doing the rounds of a Congress, DMK and DMDK tie-up.

"We are holding talks with several people at several levels," Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President B S Gnanadesikan told PTI, adding, "no party had formally finalised the pre-poll arrangement for seat-sharing or alliance."
Amid uncertainty over DMK forging alliance with Congress, leaders from the grand old party are hoping against hope that the 2009 arrangement would "revive."
Congress had won six seats in the last Lok Sabha polls in alliance with DMK which was in power in the state at that time.

If the Congress wants DMK on its side, the Karunanidhi-led party wants actor-turned- politician Vijayakanth-led DMDK to come into its fold which has not fructified so far.

DMK has till now finalised alliance with the Indian Union Muslim League, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, Manithaneyaneya Makkal Katchi, and Puthiya Tamizhagam. It is now concentrating on its Tiruchirappalli conference on February 15 and 16.
DMK, which says that a conference in Tamil Nadu's central city of Tiruchi had always been a turning point for it, hopes that DMDK would "see reason" and join hands with it so that it could boost its prospects and improve its tally of 16 seats that it won in 2009.
Similarly, Congress and BJP have also been wooing the DMDK.