State leaders of the Congress are keeping their fingers crossed, waiting for the return of their leader Rahul Gandhi who has given word to Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) president Vijay on having a discussion with him
Chennai: While State leaders of the Congress are keeping their fingers crossed, waiting for the return of their leader Rahul Gandhi who has given word to Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) president Vijay on having a discussion with him, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami went gung ho over the prospect of the nascent party forming an alliance with his during a campaign on Wednesday.
Addressing the crowd at Komarapalayam, Palaniswami was elated to point to the two large TVK flags that were fluttering at a height amidst the crowd bang opposite to his vehicle, saying that it was the beginning. While the DMK was dependent on its alliance to win the elections, the coalition of the AIADMK was growing, he said, pointing to the TVK flags being waved in the AIADMK campaign rally.
He also spoke in support of the TVK and blamed the State government for the stampede at the TVK meeting at Karur on September 27, something that he has been doing in his meetings after the tragedy and demanding a CBI enquiry into the incident. It is also said that Palaniswami spoke to Vijay over phone on October 6, presumably making a move for forging an alliance.
Though it might sound incongruous in view of Vijay’s avowed stand to treat the BJP as an enemy, the BJP itself is wooing the TVK by assuring its support in helping the party with the legal hassles that have risen over the stampede and Vijay, too, has not spurned anybody willing to help him on the issue that had made him look like a villain in the State.
However, Vijay is seemingly waiting for the meeting with Rahul Gandhi before taking a decision on the alliance though, as sources close to him claim, he now strongly feels the need for a coalition to take on the might of the DMK contesting the election with a battery of allies - even if the Congress, at the behest of Rahul Gandhi, ties up with TVK, the DMK would still have a lineup of parties backing it.
In the event of Vijay deciding to join hands with the Congress, that coalition would be the third force in the State, fighting against the DMK alliance and the BJP-AIADMK combine, but if he goes and aligns with the AIADMK, as Palaniswami was exulting in Kumarapalayam, then there would be only two major coalitions in the fray in 2026 – one led by DMK and other with AIADMK, BJP and TVK under a single umbrella.
Meanwhile, the AIADMK is also preparing its leaders and cadre base for the fight in 2026 by making the party’s 54th founding day a grand affair by holding celebrations on October 17 and 18 involving party functionaries in a big way. Palaniswami had told them to have events in all the 82 party districts in the State and also in the units in the other States like Puducherry, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Kerala, New Delhi and Andamans.
