Chennai: The BJP camp in Tamil Nadu is all set for the Lok Sabha polls, except that ‘Captain’ Vijayakanth has not yet waved the green flag.
Insiders, however, insist that the DMDK chief has agreed to join and only the numbers are to be finalised. “Captain has mentioned 14 seats (out of total 40 in TN and Puducherry). There have been some informal contacts between the DMDK and the BJP. Things will take final shape after the Ulundurpet conference (of DMDK) on February 2,” said a source close to Vijayakanth.
“The DMK leadership has at last realised the futility of waiting for Captain. They (DMK) have now instructed their district secretaries to go full steam preparing the cadres for the May battle,” said the source, requesting anonymity.
He noted that the serious convulsions now rocking the DMK and also the “very negative image” stuck to the Congress heading UPA-2 government “has now made the coming Parliament polls really a battle between the AIADMK alliance and the DMDK-led camp.”
There are, however, a few hiccups in the saffron efforts to sew up a strong alliance in the Dravidian political turf. DMDK functionaries insist on repeating their Captain’s pre-condition for poll alliance — his party must be accepted as the leader of the team-which is why they refer to it as the ‘DMDK-led camp’, while the BJP emissaries have been pleading with Captain’s lieutenants that the May election is for electing the PM and Narendra Modi is the candidate for the front.
Another problem for the camp-in-the-making is the PMK pressuring the BJP not to treat it too ‘shabbily’ in relation to the seats given to the DMDK. BJP leaders held another round of talks with a senior PMK representative at Chennai on Wednesday where, according to informed sources, it was decided to “go ahead with the alliance plan but to wait for Vijayakanth’s speech at Udumalpet”.
It may be recalled that the PMK has so far announced candidates for ten seats and is said to be readying another list of six names, though it must be admitted that the party could be willing to drop a few of them so as seal the saffron alliance.
