More than three weeks after polling for the 39 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu ended, State Congress chief K. Selvaperunthagai called upon party cadres to strive to “recapture power” in order to gain political “respect” from the DMK, the leader of the alliance of which it is a part in the State.
The Congress’s allies are bewildered by this sudden appeal given that the party made serious efforts to challenge the principal Dravidian parties, the DMK and AIADMK, only once in 1989 after losing power in 1967 in the State. A decade ago, when the Congress decided to fight the Lok Sabha elections alone, it polled just 4.37% of the votes. Since then, it has been a junior partner in the DMK-led alliance, notwithstanding the BJP’s attempts to expand its base.
In independent India, the Congress was the ruling party in Tamil Nadu between 1952 and 1967. After its loss in the 1967 Assembly elections to the DMK, it became the main Opposition party. When the AIADMK emerged as a force in Tamil Nadu politics, the Congress slipped further to become a dominant third party securing close to 20% of the vote share. Today, it is fighting to preserve its shell. The party which contested the 1980 Assembly elections from 114 seats, two more than the DMK in the same alliance, is now forced to settle for significantly fewer seats given its depleted strength, except in a few pockets. Ideologically diverse parties such as the Naam Tamilar Katchi, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, and the Pattali Makkal Katchi have emerged over time and enjoy influence in pockets across some regions. They have steadily chipped away at the Congress’s base, forcing it to depend on the Dravidian majors.
Party sources say Mr. Selvaperunthagai’s comment may have been made to allay the anxieties of the party cadres, who have often complained about mistreatment by the DMK and its local district leadership. In successive elections since 2019, the DMK has driven a hard bargain with the Congress, reducing the number of seats allotted to it. This is perhaps why Mr. Selvaperunthagai told the party cadres that they will have to strengthen the Congress for better negotiations with alliance partners if they want to reclaim respect.
However, quick backpedalling has created a sense of disillusionment. Congress leader E.V.K.S. Elangovan said that he will unhesitatingly call Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s rule as “Kamarajar’s rule (after K. Kamaraj, the first Chief Minister of the State)”. On Sunday, during a press conference, Mr. Selvaperunthagai himself echoed Mr. Elangovan’s view.
Congress leaders say when the party is an alliance, voters elect a significant number of its candidates to Parliament and Assembly, but they reject the Congress when it fights elections on its own. The elected representatives do not make adequate efforts to build the Congress at the grassroots and depend solely on the strength of their alliance partners to get re-elected.
This is not the first time that a Tamil Nadu Congress president has spoken about reviving the party. However, his remarks have gained significance because the party appears to have woken up to the need to match the ambitions of its national competitor, the BJP. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP has been dominating political headlines thanks to the its rambunctious State president, K. Annamalai, who aspires to make the BJP the principal Opposition party to the DMK. The forceful nature of the State BJP has shaken the Congress, which has been in a comfortable position and continues to be courted by the DMK and the AIADMK.
Despite Mr. Sevaperunthagai’s curious comment, many in the State leadership wonder whether the Congress high command culture of making appointments and designing the party’s strategy for Tamil Nadu from New Delhi will allow him to chart an independent path for the party in Tamil Nadu. It will also not be easy for the party to do this as both the DMK and Congress are firmly a part of the Opposition INDIA bloc at the national level. If the bloc forms the government at the Centre, the State leadership of the Congress will have to perform political gymnastics to oppose the DMK in Tamil Nadu.
Be that as it may, the Congress in Tamil Nadu needs to find ingenious ways of reasserting itself, even if it is in an alliance with the DMK. This will not be easy in a State where it will have to compete with parties with varied political ideologies. But it is clear that the Congress must make a start somewhere before its political space shrinks further.
