On Monday, AIADMK announced its list of candidates for the 2016 polls, with the party contesting 227 seats and its allies contesting from the other 7. The Tamil Maanila Congress, which was an expected ally, received a sore disappointment.
Just two days ago, the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) had received ‘positive signals’ from the ruling AIADMK and its leader G.K. Vasan was expected to meet Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in the next two days to hold seat-sharing talks.
It was earlier reported in The Hindu that according to AIADMK sources, a team of senior ministers is holding talks with Vasan directly. “Initially, the offer was only for eight seats. Now, the party might offer up to 15 seats,” said a party senior.
For the TMC, there was no other option for them. The space for political parties other than the AIADMK and the DMK cannot be created without weakening one of them.
Though the TMC might have got a good bargain with the DMK, party sources said Vasan could not reconcile himself to the idea of aligning with the party, as the DMK leadership had spurned his request for a Rajya Sabha seat.
Originally, the TMC was started on an anti-AIADMK plank in 1996, but lost the plank five years later when party founder G.K. Moopanar backed Ms. Jayalalithaa in the 2001 Assembly elections.
He however, decided to keep away from both the DMK and AIADMK. But his efforts did not succeed, the TMC moved towards the AIADMK, along with the Congress, in 2001. After Moopanar’s death in 2002, his son G.K. Vasan merged the TMC with the Congress. However, he revived the party in 2014 following differences of opinion with the Congress leadership again.
An agreement between the AIADMK and the TMC was to be reached in the next few days over seat-sharing. But the sidelining of the party in the candidate announcement has seemingly come as a major embarrassment to the party.