Starting with a murmur of discontent over not being given a share of the power pie, discontent rose among Congress leaders, mostly working at the national level with little knowledge of grassroots realities.
It was a manmade tempest that threatened to wreck a smooth sailing ship in Tamil Nadu’s political waters. Surviving several storms, the alliance between the DMK and Congress, along with sundry parties like the VCK, CPI and CPI(M), was seemingly the people’s favourite political composition that rocked the results of about half a score of elections at various levels. But when the drumbeats for the next Assembly elections were being heard at a distance, things went topsy-turvy with some honchos of the Congress waking up to an illusion.
Starting with a murmur of discontent over not being given a share of the power pie, discontent rose among Congress leaders, mostly working at the national level with little knowledge of grassroots realities. Soon it turned into a war of words that touched a crescendo powerful enough to smash the monolithic alliance to smithereens. What initially looked like a series of social media squeals soon picked up decibels and turned into a full-blown dissonance, whose gravity was felt when leaders of both parties got down to brass tacks to work out the strategy for the crucial Assembly elections the spectre of which had started looming over the horizon.
Some Congress honchos, not familiar with grassroots dynamics but hobnob with the crème de la crème, had fathomed that their party deserved more than what it was being given by the coalition leader, the DMK. That sense of discontent became contagious and started spreading to the higher echelons of the party, giving the alliance a big jolt with the DMK disagreeing with the newfound theory of the Congress popularity going up in leaps and bounds and insisting on keeping the status quo.
With national honchos wanting to drive a hard bargain or find an alternative that would enable them to rejuvenate their party in the state, ignoring the caution by some senior state leaders, the ties came under strain. But the move was dropped on Wednesday after the national leadership woke up to the ground realities and put the alliance on track, much to the delight of most local functionaries of both parties.
