New Delhi: The spectacular performance of actor-politician Vijay in the recent Tamil Nadu elections was somewhat overshadowed by the drama that followed for three days as Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) fell 11 seats short of majority.
The Congress was the first party to extend a helping hand to TVK, but even their support with 5 elected legislators did not suffice.
TVK finally reached the magic number of 118 on Friday, with support from two Left parties and VCK.
The talking point was Congress’ decision to form an alliance with Vijay’s party. It not only created a rift within the INDIA bloc, but also within the grand old party itself.
Veteran leader Mani Shankar Aiyar is the latest to slam Congress’ move.
The 85-year-old Aiyar said the party had ‘violated’ Mahatma Gandhi’s injunction of ‘government by morality’.
“In November 1925, a hundred years ago, Mahatma Gandhi laid down the injunction in his Gujarati magazine, Navjeevan, that Swaraj should mean government by morality. And it
is this injunction that has been violated by the Congress Party, Mahatma Gandhi’s party, in the recent decision to jump ship and join the TVK after having opposed the TVK in the recent election. Such politics of expediency is not the way forward,” Aiyar said.
Referring to the uncertainty of government formation for three days despite Congress’ support, Aiyar termed the move as ‘political flat-footedness’.
“There’s also a certain political flat-footedness involved in this decision because we thought that by defecting from the DMK alliance, the other smaller members of the alliance, smaller even than us, would also defect, but none of them has defected. And therefore, we are left absolutely in limbo, we have committed the immorality of joining Vijay but also committed the political stupidity of not ensuring that he has a majority,” Aiyar said hours before the CPI, CPI(M) and VCK backed Vijay to push TVK’s number up to 118.
The DMK has accused Congress of “backstabbing” the alliance at a crucial moment.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also took a veiled dig at the Congress through a social media post. Akhilesh posted a photograph with TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and captioned it, “We are not the ones who abandon each other in times of difficulty.”
Akhilesh met outgoing West Bengal CM Mamata at her Kolkata residence on Thursday following Trinamool Congress’ poll debacle.