Chennai: Tamil Nadu Congress president K S Alagiri has invited TMC chief G K Vasan to return to the parent Congress party while reminding him that his late father Moopanar had quit the Congress to launch the TMC only in protest against PV Narasimha Rao forging alliance with the AIADMK.
How could Vasan now team up with the same AIADMK and with the saffron BJP, asked Alagiri and said the Congress is the natural home for the TMC chief. The AICC leadership would warmly welcome Vasan and his TMC into the party fold, the TNCC chief said.
He was responding to a report in a Tamil newspaper that claimed that Vasan was keen on returning to the Congress party and had in fact gone to New Delhi to negotiate his 'home-coming'.
Vasan dismissed Alagiri's invitation to return to the Congress, slamming him for taking seriously a newspaper's "irresponsible and malicious" report that claimed he (Vasan) was negotiating return to the parent party. "We are comfortable with our independent identity and functional freedom. We are presently focused on building up the TMC as even stronger, with main focus and strategy aimed at winning a significant number of seats in the coming local body polls and the Assembly elections when they take place", Vasan told DC, firmly ruling out going back to the Congress.
Vasan said the TMC had been taking up people's issues over the last four years and campaigning for solutions by agitating independently, not tying up with the other parties. "People and parties, who are jealous of the TMC's growth from town to village level, are spreading this sort of falsehood", he said.
Referring to Alagiri faulting him for aligning with the AIADMK and the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections as well as the by-elections for 22 Assembly seats, Vasan said, "I had made clear in media interactions as well as campaign rallies that the TMC is deeply committed to ensuring national security and we are convinced that only the BJP is capable of delivering on this".
