Pondicherry Developments: A Realignment Of Political Forces

IN A realignment of political forces in Pondicherry, Mr G K Moopanar's TMC has agreed to concede the Chief Ministership to the Congress. The broad contours of the proposed coalition, at the expense of the one led by the DMK, were approved earlier this week by Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

After Maharashtra and Bihar, the stage for the third State-level coalition with direct Congress participation, since the 1999 LS polls the party fought on the slogan of single-party rule, was set at a meeting Mrs Gandhi had with the TMC's Rajya Sabha MP, Ms Jayanthi Natarajan. AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad also participated in the crucial parleys after which Mr Moopanar's party formally withdrew support from the DMK-led regime.

 

Ms Natarajan has since left for Chennai to ensure implementation of the agreed coalition package. For the present, CLP leader V Vaithilingam is the Congress' candidate for the top slot. The only stumbling block in his way could be a pending CBI inquiry.

The Pondicherry developments have come to be viewed as a precursor to another exception the Congress might make, this time in Tamil Nadu, to the spirit of the 1998 Pachmarhi Declaration, which pledged restoration of the party's primacy in national affairs while leaving scope for programme-based coalitions. The ground for the likely tie-up in TN was, in fact, prepared in the recent by-elections where the Congress-TMC combine backed the AIADMK's unsuccessful bid to wrest the three seats at stake.

AICC sources indicated that the TMC's reluctance to withdraw support from the DMK-led dispensation, despite withdrawal of its Ministers from the Pondicherry Government, delayed the installation of a Congress-led coalition by a couple of months. Mr Moopanar was said to be keen that the Cong-TMC should jointly approach the Governor to convey withdrawal of support by his party while staking claim to form a new Government.

However, Mrs Gandhi's clear message to Mr Moopanar, in the course of their several meetings, was that her party could legitimately come into the picture only after the TMC snapped all links with the DMK. By placing the cart before the horse, the Congress would have got projected as a destabiliser while, in reality, it was the TMC's decision to withdraw support, which reduced the DMK-navigated regime into a minority.

In the 33-member House, the Congress has eight seats, the TMC seven, the AIADMK three and the CPI one.