DMDK inches closer to DMK

Chennai: The DMDK in its Friday statement has welcomed the DMK government and Chief Minister MK Stalin for advising the women councillors about the steps to be taken to reduce interference of their spouses in day-to-day administration, standing firm in the efforts to retrieve Katchatheevu and for arresting the accused in Virudhunagar gang-rape incident.

Except in the Virudhunagar case, there is no visibly strong moves in the other two issues. Despite all these, the DMDK has appreciated the actions of the DMK government. The support comes when the DMDK, which once rose to the status of principal opposition party, is left without a single representation in the last four elections making it lose its recognition as a state party.

The DMDK since 2011 has been part of various alliances. While it aligned with AIADMK in 2011, it joined hands with the BJP and PMK in 2014, then it was part of the People Welfare Alliance (PWA) in 2016, Again in 2019, it returned to AIADMK alliance and finally in 2021 it faced the Assembly elections with the AMMK. The DMDK, which once crossed 10 per cent vote share, drew a blank in the 2021 Assembly elections and its vote share dipped to a mere 0.41 percentage.

The DMDK, which has not sided with the DMK in its 17 years of state politics, is keen to join the mega alliance which is evident from its opposition to the BJP. A proof of this is the speech of DMDK treasurer Premalatha Vijayakant, who during a recent protest, blasted BJP and the ‘Y’ category security provided to its state unit president K Annamalai .