Chennai: With no elections in sight after boycotting the bypolls to three Assembly seats, members of the People's Welfare Alliance have no compulsions to stay together and seem to be pulling in different directions.
When the local body elections were announced, the PWA parties shared the wards among themselves and were ready to take the plunge. But, conflicts arose after the civic body elections were deferred without fixing any date. With Parliament elections about three years away, the PWA constituents have nothing to bind them together now.
The leaders are now speaking in different voices and seem to be making calculated moves with the strategy for the next Parliament elections at the back of their mind.
The parties, which are in the fray for the Assembly by-polls, have got busy with their campaign in the three seats, but the PWA constituents, who are waiting for the completion of the bypolls have not identified a cohesive agenda to work together at the moment.
One of the constituents, VCK, has chosen to be busy in the Puducherry bypoll, supporting the Congress candidate and Puducherry Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy. Leader of VCK Thol. Thirumavalavan will campaign for the Congress-DMK alliance in the Union Territory to prevent the emergence of the BJP which has fielded nominees only in TN and not in Puducherry.
A day after Thirumavalavan's support to Congress in Puducherry, CPI (M), another constituent of the PWA, issued a statement condemning Congress and announcing poll boycott.
While Thirumavalavan seems to have a soft corner for the DMK, CPI(M) secretariat member K. Balakrishnan, in an interview, indicated that the CPI(M)'s agenda in the 2016 Assembly elections was to stop the DMK from coming to power. While defending the decision to announce DMDK leader Vijayakanth as the CM candidate, the CPI(M) leader said DMK would have come to power if such an alliance was not formed, openly claiming credit for the election results which brought back AIADMK to power.
So far, MDMK general secretary Vaiko was taking the blame for such a hidden agenda, but Balakrishnan is the first CPI(M) leader who had revealed the CPI (M) agenda.
Vaiko, is consistent in endorsing the AIADMK government's initiatives on the Cauvery dispute and openly praises the state government's approach. In an interview to a Tamil magazine, Vaiko also flayed reports of AIADMK MLAs crossing over to the DMK and asserted that AIADMK government would not fall.
An indication of holding the civic polls soon could keep the alliance intact for a few more months. But, if it is certainly known that the local body elections would not be held in the near future, the PWA parties could further drift away and start their journey to their planned destinations for the next Parliament elections.
