Chennai: Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will not be attending the conclave of the I.N.D.I.A. coalition on Saturday in New Delhi and has deputed DMK treasurer T.R. Baalu to represent him and convey the party’s stand to the leaders of the other parties of the national opposition alliance. Trinamul president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already said she will not be attending the meeting.
Since Stalin expected to guide the coalition partners in arriving at the right decision in taking forward the unity of the 28 parties that form the coalition, his absence would be felt by some national leaders.
With the speculation of the I.N.D.I.A. coalition possibly getting the necessary numbers to form government at the Centre gaining ground, most of the partners of the national alliance were keen on ironing out differences and staying together.
In the Saturday meeting that is scheduled to be held at the residence of Congress president Mallikarjuna Kharge, one of the key items in the agenda would be to finalise the Prime Ministerial candidate though there are many contenders.
As some parties are averse to handing over the Prime Minister post to certain individuals or certain political parties, a sort of consensus was required to be arrived at ahead of the results to prevent last minute bickering.
Even in the event of the ruling NDA winning the polls, the opposition would have to devise its own strategy to first stay united and then continue to remain a thorn in the flesh of the new government rather than letting some parties switch loyalties.
The popular perception is that Stalin’s role as a senior leader in the country and as the head of the DMK, which was expected to win a substantial number of seats, along with its electoral allies, in sorting out the existing differences among the various parties based in the north Indian States would be essential at this point of time for maintaining the unity.
The problem with the north India based parties was that they would be rivals with the Congress in one State or the other and many of them had grown by pointing fingers at the Congress unlike the DMK that would be able to take a neutral stand when the question of leadership arises as it is friendly with all national opposition parties.
Also the DMK, particularly Stalin, is not at all averse to handing over the leadership of the coalition, if it wins the elections, to the Congress and even make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister, which is also the agenda of the Congress. So the Congress would like the support of Stalin in the deliberations at the meeting.
But since the DMK and Stalin would like to wait for the results and then drive a hard bargain to enable the party gain an upper hand in national politics, the June 1 meeting would not serve its purpose in realizing its aspirations.
