Congress peeved by treatment during signing of alliance deal

Senior Congress sources revealed to DT Next that DMK organizing secretary R S Bharati had informed TNCC chief K S Alagiri not to bring more than three leaders, including AICC general secretaries Mukul Wasnik (in charge of Tamil Nadu) and K V Venugopal to their party headquarters for signing the agreement.

Ironically, Alagiri who was taken aback by the embargo on participation of leaders had already invited all his former state presidents to the luxury hotel in Guindy from where they had originally planned to reach DMK headquarters in a group. While immediate past president Su Thirunavukkarasar and his predecessor EVKS Elangovan had started back to their homes after learning about the instruction from DMK, Kumari Ananathan and M Krishnasamy were learnt to have accompanied the TNCC chief and waited outside Stalin’s room in Arivalayam. Alagiri has put some real effort to take his legislature party leader K R Ramasamy, a friend of DMK, to Arivalayam for sealing the poll deal.

Not surprisingly, the issue came to disturb the DMK a few days later when it approached Congress to compromise a few seats to accommodate Vijayakanth’s DMDK. A few state Congress leaders had not only cited the ill-treatment to decline the DMK’s request to concede seats but also cited the photographs of a gleeful Stalin posing with over a dozen members of a fledgling KNMDK and IUML while sealing the poll pact. Though TNCC struggles to comprehend the regional ally’s behaviour, DMK insiders opined that it could have been triggered by Stalin and senior leaders’ unhappiness over Congress securing an assurance from Kanimozhi for 10 seats, including Puducherry.