With the assembly elections round the corner, the Congress in Tamil Nadu is getting ready for a hard bargain over seat sharing with the DMK. Different factions in the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee has different views with regard to electoral alliance.
While one of the factions wants to accept the number of seats offered by the DMK and contest the elections, another is getting ready for tough negotiations, saying the DMK cannot win the elections alone. A third faction is of the opinion that the Congress will have to quit the alliance and go for a tie-up with actor-turned-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK).
According to highly placed sources in the Congress, the factional feud, which has been part and parcel of the party, has touched a new high in the recent days, with a few of the leaders exploring ways to replace the state unit chief K. Selvaperunthagai. His detractors allege that he is "corrupt and very close to the DMK.”
The Congress had been part of the DMK alliance since 2004, except for the 2014 general election, when both the DMK and the Congress were washed out in the state. Since 2004, the Congress has been part of the DMK alliance in every assembly election. In 2006, it contested in 48 seats and increased the number to 63 in 2011, with the 2G spectrum scam playing a huge role in the bargain. In 2016, this number went down to 41 and again to 25 in 2025.
At present, the Congress has 17 MLAs in the state assembly.
“How can we be part of an alliance which is trying to crush us” asked a senior leader on condition of anonymity. “The number of seats we are contesting has to go up. Only if we contest in 60 to 70 seats, our vote share will increase. We want to be part of the government, and we will pitch for power sharing this time,” the senior leader told THE WEEK.
The talks about power sharing, demand for more seats and quitting the DMK alliance gained strength very recently after Rahul Gandhi’s outreach to Vijay after the Karur tragedy. His phone call with Vijay for around five minutes has triggered the talk about Congress’s attempts to quit the DMK alliance and align with TVK. Since then, many of the seniors in the party, who have not been feeling comfortable with the DMK leaders, have been speculating about an alliance with the TVK.
Adding to this was Karur MP Jothimani’s answer to a question on Congress’s alliance with Vijay’s TVK. While denying alliance talks with the TVK, Jothimani said, “Vijay is not new to the Congress. He had met our leader Rahul Gandhi in 2010.” Though she made clear that her party cannot reply to social media chatter, her comments have only given a new lease of hope for those who have been working to make the Congress walk out of the DMK alliance.
“The Congress doesn’t seem to have learnt a lesson despite its loss in Bihar. In Bihar, the alliance lost only because the Congress didn’t understand the ground reality and wasn’t willing to work as per the RJD’s strategies. If they fail to understand it even now, their numbers will go down further. Only the DMK has been supporting the Congress and they got 10 MPs from Tamil Nadu,” a senior DMK leader told THE WEEK.
However, the talks about Congress walking out of the alliance has always been a point of discussion. Before the 2021 election, there were attempts to float a third front consisting of Congress and Thol. Thirumavalavan’s VCK. In 2024, a few of the Congress leaders in Tamil Nadu even sent feelers to the AIADMK. And now Vijay’s TVK has given a new lease of life to those who have been opposing the DMK. |
