Tempest brews in PMK?tea cup

Chennai: There appears to be a storm of sorts blowing within the PMK’s first family with founder Dr S. Ramadoss not too keen on an alliance with the BJP for the Lok Sabha polls while his son Dr Anbumani is all for it.

Almost all in the family as well as in the party are convinced that aligning with the BJP would yield a few seats in Parliament while going it alone is sure to be disastrous, according to informed sources.

BJP has already sealed the alliance with the MDMK and is confident of getting ‘Captain’ Vijayakanth’s DMDK to its side. It could be a formidable ‘third-front’ in Tamil Nadu if this alliance also includes the PMK. “We have been talking to Dr Anbumani. He is pragmatic and understands the ground realities. We hope he will be able to prevail upon his father to agree (to BJP alliance)”, said a senior from the saffron party.

A BJP team is meeting Dr Anbumani again on Monday, but such meetings have been taking place without the party founder, who is out touring the northern districts for drumming up support from caste groups, women and backward class youth for his social revolution that he claims will eradicate corruption, alcoholism and violence against women. Critics insist that his coalition of castes is being used only as a vehicle for political gains, translating into votes at poll time.

“Dr Ramadoss seems uncomfortable about ali­gn­ing with the BJP because he fears the coa­lition of castes that he has been assiduously bu­ilding up over the ye­ars would be hijacked by the BJP, which too has the same constituency of the Hindu Samaj”, said the BJP functionary, re­qu­­­esting anonymity.  

Next: PMK may have no option but to go Modi way

PMK may have no option but to go Modi way

G. Jagannath | DC

Chennai: The differences between the party founder and his son notwithstanding, the PMK may ultimately sign up alliance with the BJP even that meant settling for less than the DMDK in the distribution of seats in such saffron coalition, informed sources say.

They say that Dr S Ramadoss has spoken to each of his ten Lok Sabha candidates and all of them told him it would be disastrous for the PMK if it’s not with the BJP in this poll. “He (Ramadoss) is still not for the BJP alliance but we are confident that his son and the rest of the family will convince him.

Besides, his party functionaries too are not for going it alone”, said a source. “Many PMK functionaries I spoke to in recent weeks said maruthuvar ayya had made mistakes in forging alliances in the past but this time, he is going to make a fatal mistake if he does not join an alliance”, said a BJP functionary who has been handling some of the alliance talks here.

According to him, there has been “a lot of progress” in the alliance talks with the PMK “though the only big hitch is bringing around senior Ramadoss”. The PMK had started with demanding 22 seats and no berth with the DMDK but now Dr Anbumani appeared to have reconciled to sharing the saffron space with Captain, even conceding more to the DMDK “because they are the main opposition in the Assembly and that party is spread across the state whereas the PMK is strong only in the northern districts”. The BJP too is likely to improve upon its initial offer of a mere seven seats to the PMK, said the BJP source.

Dr Ramadoss released the first list of five PMK candidates even in October. He announced the second list of two candidates on November 9, three days after his son started dialogue with the BJP.

His third list of three names came early January, even as the talks with the BJP were continuing. “This even gave us the impression that he was making it difficult for his son to talk to us, but we carried on in the interests of strengthening the coalition”, said the BJP leader.

Another source said the BJP national general secretary P Muralidhar Rao and state president Pon Radhakrishnan are in “continuous contact” with Dr Anbumani. “We are confident of tying up the alliance in the next few days because he (Anbumani) is very practical”, he said.