Mr Karunanidhi seems willing to accommodate more state-level groups with a Dravidian brand, which would go along willingly for an “undiluted” DMK Government, and this could help to reduce the number of seats, to the extent possible, for the Congress as against its reported expectation of not less than around 80 seats. He is encouraged by the successful re-entry of PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi) of Dr. S. Ramadoss who has signed a deal for 31 seats, as its share in the DMK-led alliance, the same number that PMK got in 2006, of which it won 18 seats.

Now this was made possible, it is acknowledged by PMK, following the “intervention” of Ms. Sonia Gandhi whom Mr Anbumani Ramadoss, son of PMK leader and former Union Health Minister, met in New Delhi. Mr Karunanidhi had shut the door against PMK after the last bout of the quarrels between the two leaders, one of the sickening features of TN politics. Ms. Gandhi’s reported agreement to PMK participation paved the way for Dr Ramadoss to swallow everything that Mr Karunanidhi would have said and call on Mr Karunanidhi and clinch the deal for 31 seats. In one of his earlier DMK offers for seat-sharing, Dr Ramadoss was offered not more than 20 on the ground that Congress was demanding more.

Now it is Mr Karunanidhi’s expectation that he could more or less tie down the Congress to 60-65 seats citing other local stripes of caste-based outfits. Nevertheless, Mr Karunanidhi would see to it that DMK contests with the largest number of seats such that net of losses, it could manage to have an absolute majority which would put it on a stronger ground to run a single-party government. Certainly it would need, but not necessarily depend, on Congress support from outside and this is assured so long as UPA-II survives with support of such allies as DMK and Trinamool Congress of Madam Mamata Banerjee. Mr Karunanidhi successfully kept the Congress at bay since 2006, even after the Left and PMK dropped out of the alliance and DMK was already a minority party.

Whatever the motivation of Ms. Sonia Gandhi to agree to PMK rejoining the alliance, on which certainly the DMK would have had the final say, the Congress President must have her own calculations about the Tamil Nadu political scene. It is not as though the Congress would come through in glorious numbers to be able to assert its share in Government, even if it got 65 to 70 seats to contest in the bargain. The next stage is spatial distribution of allotted number of seats, the constituencies, where there would be sharp differences over preferences of the alliance partners.

Dr Ramadoss is confident he would focus on the Vanniar-dominated districts, his traditional support base, to be able to score a significant number of seats, after drawing blank in his alliance with AIADMK led by Ms. Jayalalithaa in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. Dr Ramadoss is a veteran in shifting alliance loyalties. In 2001, PMK was part of AIADMK-led alliance winning 18 seats. In 2004, he was in DMK-Congress alliance and won 6 seats for the Lok Sabha. As part of this alliance, in the 2006 assembly elections, PMK contested 31 seats and won 18 seats. The sweetener for Dr Ramadoss was Mr Karunanidhi’s willingness to let his son, Mr Anbumani Ramadoss, have a Rajya Sabha seat in the next byelection so that the latter could aspire for a berth in the Union Council of Ministers, as he had before. Dr Ramadoss was earlier cut up with Mr Karunanidhi because he did not give his son this seat in last year’s Rajya Sabha biennial elections.

PMK and the two Left parties had broken with Mr Karunanidhi in 2008 and later they were part of the AIADMK-led alliance for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Till recently, PMK seemed to remain aligned with AIADMK –led alliance which includes Mr Vaiko’s MDMK, though Dr Ramadoss had been advocating a Congress-led alliance in Tamil Nadu.. That has also been the refrain of Captain Vijayakanth, leader of DMDK, which is no less condemnatory of DMK’s “family and corrupt rule” than Ms. Jayalalithaa. DMDK has built for itself over the last five or six years a strong base with a good chunk of votes though it could not win seats except the leader’s own.

Ms. Jayalalithaa had hoped for a break-up of the DMK-led alliance and has been actively electioneering over the last six months with a determination to wrest power and also have a candidate to unseat the DMK leader. She had called for the arrest of Mr Raja long before he was eased out of the Cabinet and has since been demanding that Mr. Karunanidhi and his family members should be included as co-accused in the 2G spectrum allocation case, ”to unearth the whole truth” as only then “the interests of justice would be served”. She strikes confidence of coming back to power with her assessment of strong aversion to the Karunanidhi rule in Tamil Nadu, especially in the light of the Raja episode. CBI had conducted raids on an organization with which Ms. Kanimozhi MP and daughter of Mr Karunanidhi is associated and on Kalaignar TV in which Mr Karunanidhi’s wife and daughter are major shareholders. These raids were to focus on flow of funds to Kalaignar TV and its investments, according to officials..

The going will also be tough for Ms. Jayalalithaa in cobbling together an alliance which could include the relatively powerful DMDK besides Mr Vaiko’s MDMK and the Left parties and other smaller outfits. . The DMDK nominees would be negotiating with Ms. Jayalalithaa for not less than 50 seats while MDMK and Left parties will have their shares yet to be settled. The rival alliance is slow to shape up and Left has reservations about possible BJP wanting to be part of this alliance. Overall the anti-DMK political forces count on the popular distaste with the ways of DMK administration.

Mr Karunanidhi had even before the Raja episode showed signs of some diffidence and wanted to go in alliance with the Congress to be able to defeat a resurgent Ms. Jayalalithaa. After Mr Raja’s arrest and the proceedings thus far, he seemed to be feeling even more desperate in the manner he has gone about courting every section of the community including film, television and folk artistes. Putting his strong atheism aside, he visited the Big Temple in Thanjavur on the occasion of 1,000 years of its completion. Racing against time before the Election Commission’s model code of conduct comes into force, Government has been rushing with its welfare schemes and distribution of free TVs and LPG stoves at functions organized all over the state. (IPA)