Chennai: The AIADMK is suspected to have opened a channel of communication with the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), which has been plowing a lone furrow since it started contesting elections in 2016 and projecting itself as an alternative to both the DMK and AIADMK, to forge an alliance for the coming Lok Sabha polls.
Rumours have it that AIADMK honchos S P Velumani and K Thangamani, who had recently called on leaders like S Ramadoss of the PMK and Premalatha Vijayakanth of the DMDK to rope them into their alliance, were in touch NTK top brass though party chief coordinator Seeman had been reportedly opposed to the idea of an alliance.
Ever since the NTK entered the electoral fray in the 2016 Assembly elections, it had fielded candidates in almost all constituencies – even giving 50 reservation for women in the 2021 Assembly elections – and never taken in an ally.
With most of the candidates losing the elections miserably, some of them getting less votes than NOTA, the general impression was that Seeman was keen on only fighting the polls than on winning them by aligning with other parties. It’s a stand that he, too, has been maintaining even now.
Yet speculations over a possible change of stand by the party were made after rumours of the AIADMK’s clandestine moves to reach out to the party top brass came out. It was said that AIADMK leaders were trying to meet Seeman’s wife K Kayavizhi, who was recently inducted into the party top leadership.
Since Kayalvizhi is the daughter of late K Kalimuthu, former Speaker and key AIADMK leader, some AIADMK leaders had claimed to know her as an adolescent and that they could convince her on the importance of the NTK entering into an alliance with the AIADMK for its political survival.
But there had been no indication of the AIADMK delegation meeting Kayalvizhi or Seeman having a change of heart on the alliance question. Yet the rumour mills continue to churn out stories on the attempts being made to rope the NTK into the fold since the party polled 6.89 per cent votes in 2021.
Starting at 1.1 per cent in 2016 – in the earlier 2011 elections the party only campaigned against the Congress for being responsible for the genocide in Sri Lanka – its vote share went up to 3.90 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in which it contested from all the constituencies.
Even for the coming Lok Sabha polls, he had already announced the names of five contestants from Trichy, Thanjavur, Mayiladuthurai, Nagapattinam and Perumbalur, indicating that there was no change in his political stand. Yet, the rumours continue to float around.
