Will ask neither more nor less from DMK during seat-sharing talks, says Alagiri

Speaking to DT Next over phone, Alagiri said, “The number of seats we contest (in an alliance) is not a matter of pride. A myth has been created among parties that the number of seats they contest is a matter of pride. Be it DMK or Congress or VCK, all party cadres are falsely believing that the number of seats they contest matters. The high commands do not. It should be demystified.” Asked if it were unfair (on cadre) to expect the party to contest a few additional seats, the TNCC chief said, “We should not calculate how many additional seats we contest. The term additional or excess means it is more than the requirement.”

On what would be TNCC requirement, he tersely said, “I will neither ask a lot nor less than our requirement. I will ask for the number of seats our party can manage. Our high level committee will decide the number. I believe in collective leadership. I will consult everyone in TNCC and our national leadership before deciding the number.”

Downplaying the Bihar debacle as a ‘campaign’ of pro-BJP elements, the TNCC chief described the performance as a “major victory” to the alliance and said, “The vote difference between us and them is only 12,800. A myth that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot be defeated has been busted in Bihar. Some pro-BJP elements are engaged in a campaign that Congress pulled down RJD by winning fewer seats. The combined vote share of our alliance is more important that the number of seas we had won. If Congress had not allied with RJD, the party would have won just 40 seats, not 70 plus to become the single largest party. We arrived at the number by analyzing Congress vote share and victory margin of RJD candidates. RJD gave us tough seats in which JDU and BJP contested. We contested in seats even RJD cannot win because they (RJD) apportioned seats (to us) as the larger party. Larger parties should allot more winnable seats to parties in second and third position in the alliance. We should contest in more winnable seats. That is the lesson we learnt from Bihar.”

Asked if it was Congress, the cause of the failure in Tamil Nadu in 2016, a reticent Alagiri refused to recap the past and said that Stalin had given them seats generously in 2019 and they had won 9 of the 10 contested seats in 2019 and it would be pertinent to only consider the 2019 Lok Sabha and Bihar examples and not rewind to distant past. When his attention was drawn to DMK men feeding information that Congress should be given less due to the poor strike rate and presence of more parties in the alliance, the TNCC chief said, “People (in DMK) who talk to you say so. DMK men who speak to me said that we are doing well and the recent changes in TNCC are encouraging. They say we (TNCC) and our leader were equally responsible for 2019 victory. Important leaders in DMK tell me that we should work together.”

On whether the survey being done by the TNCC was meant to identify winnable seats, Alagiri said, “It would be a myopic view (to identify winnable seats). We are assessing the strength of the DMK, other allies and our opponents besides our own strength on constituency basis. We had considered 70 key seats. We intend to extend the survey to all 234 seats. We cross check the information received from our party workers and the people.”

Categorically denying engagement of agencies, Alagiri said, “We are not a party, rich enough to engage agencies. We have limited resources. We use them to teach our local party men to conduct the survey. We have learnt from the study that our vote share has risen. We had 6-7 per cent votes in 2016. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it rose to 12 per cent. Now, we believe we have 15 per cent vote share in the state.”