Eye on LS polls, Cong to change TNCC president

With an eye on the general elections, the Congress has decided to elect a new person to head its Tamil Nadu unit to achieve two ends — ...

With an eye on the general elections, the Congress has decided to elect a new person to head its Tamil Nadu unit to achieve two ends — one, to negotiate with the DMK or the AIADMK for an alliance and secondly, to rid the party’s state unit of factionalism.

The party has been trying to bring in a leader to the state party unit who would be able to negotiate both with the DMK and the AIADMK for an alliance during the forthcoming general elections.

The Congress, with a minimal presence in Tamil Nadu, is looking for a crucial alliance which would be vital to its grand plan for a national coalition. According to sources in the Congress, AICC secretary G.K. Vasan is the front-runner for the post followed by Jayanti Natarajan. It is learnt that general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu, Kamal Nath today met senior party leaders to finalise the names for the post. A decision on the matter is expected by the end of this week.

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With this, the Congress hopes to put an end to the long-standing tussle between TNCC president S. Balakrishnan and working president E.V.K.S. Elangovan. The rift had become most obvious in March this year when both these leaders suspended loyalists of opposite camps to gain an upper hand.

Later in June, preparations for the Kamaraj centenary celebrations had also run into rough weather because of the same reason.

The AICC had made repeated attempts to make the two camps patch up their differences but in vain. Tamil Nadu is crucial for the Congress. Presently, the party has only two of 39 Lok Sabha seats.

The party hopes to do better in the next polls. Congress leaders say there is a strong anti-incumbency wave working against the two main political parties in the state — the AIADMK which is in power in the state and the DMK which is an NDA partner at the Centre.

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But it is a fact that while the Congress has always polled a minimum of 15 per cent votes in every election in the state, it has always had to tie up with one of the regional parties to come to power. However, the party believes that by putting its house in order, it would be in a position to bargain better with potential allies.