Chennai: Preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections have intensified with the DMK calling for a meeting of its district secretaries, regional observers and Ministers on Sunday, October 1, through video conference and the AIADMK that recently severed its ties with the BJP looking out for new allies to form a grand alliance.
DMK general secretary announced that the meeting on Sunday would be presided over by Chief Minister M K Stalin without mentioning the agenda. It is said that in the earlier meetings it was realized that some of the booth committees have not been formed properly and the office-bearers were asked to fix the matter.
Stalin is expected to check out if all the booth committees of the DMK were election ready for the polls could even be advanced. Even if they were held as per schedule, the coalitions have just about seven months to gear up for it by sorting out a wide range of issues.
The DMK now also faces the challenge of keeping all its allies in the coalition as the AIADMK, by walking out on the BJP, has created a new political situation. Earlier the various parties that were with the DMK in the past Assembly and Parliament elections in 2021 and 2019 respectively had no option other than remaining in the alliance as the only alternative they had was the AIADMK-BJP front.
Since most parties in the State fear that an open association with the BJP could be detrimental to their poll prospects, they remained in the secular front, despite having resentments over the DMK’s dictating terms to them particularly on the allocation of seats.
It was said that the Congress, the major ally of the DMK in the State, was told that it should not be expecting more than six seats to contest from in 2024 though the party was allotted 10 seats in 2019 and it won nine of them.
Similarly other parties in the coalition like the MDMK, CPM, CPI and VCK and a range of small parties were reportedly told not to expect more than one seat this time and were encouraged to contest in the DMK’s ‘Rising Sun’ symbol, causing some heartburns.
Since those parties found themselves in a political cul de sac earlier, they were keeping quiet, making the management of the coalition easy for the DMK leadership. But now that the AIADMK has reportedly started sending feelers to some of the DMK allies, the scenario has changed.
Switching over the AIADMK coalition by any of its present partners might not augur well for the image of the DMK, which is now playing a prominent role in the national INDIA alliance, all set to take on the BJP at that all-India level.
The recent controversy whipped up over the Sanatana Dharma remarks made by State Youth Welfare Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin had already made a dent in the DMK’s image at the national level as the comments were twisted out of context to give it an ‘anti-Hindu’ colour.
In such a backdrop if any of present partners – they are all counted as separate constituents of the INDIA alliance – switched over the AIADMK, which is any way projecting itself as a secular party after moving away from the BJP, it could have serious political ramifications at the national level.
So the DMK has to play its cards carefully and ensure that the alliance was kept intact despite the possible attempts to poach the allies by not only the AIADMK and the BJP, which, too, is said to be planning to form a third front.
Sunday’s meeting is likely to discuss several issues relating to the strengthening of the booth committees and relationship with alliance partners with a view to not letting the AIADMK wean them away.
