DMK may drag Vaiko to court

NEW DELHI: The rivalry between Tamil Nadu’s ruling party DMK and arch rival Vaiko, both constituents of the UPA at the Centre, is headed for the courts. In response to MDMK chief Vaiko’s allegations in a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday that the DMK was responsible for “the confusion” in his party, the DMK has said it would file a defamation case against the firebrand leader who is now in the AIADMK camp.

DMK treasurer and state minister Arcot N Veeraswamy, talking to the press in Chennai, described Mr Vaiko’s statements as “an utter lie” and added that he was trying to “defame” the ruling party.

Mr Vaiko is faced with the prospect of a revolt within his party with two senior MPs, L Ganesan and Gingee N Ramachandran, having signalled their dissatisfaction with the party’s performance and Vaiko’s own pull over the electorate. They were on the verge of announcing their exit from the party when Mr Vaiko ordered their removal from the party posts, though he did not suspend them from primary membership of the party. They, in turn, approached the Madras High Court which granted an interim stay over their removal.

After this, Mr Vaiko wrote to New Delhi blaming the DMK for trying to cause “terrific damage” to his party. In identical letters to Ms Gandhi and Mr Singh, Mr Vaiko alleged he had learnt from “very reliable sources” that DMK president and chief minister M Karunanidhi had “hatched” a conspiracy with his party’s dissident leaders Mr Ganesan and Mr Ramachandran “to create problems and to tarnish the image and credibility of the MDMK”.

He had also alleged that Mr Karunanidhi had hatched a plan to let loose “hooliganism by hired goons” in connivance with the police to disrupt an MDMK stock-taking meeting on Monday in Chennai. Mr Veeraswamy, reacting to these allegations, said his party would not only file a case against Mr Vaiko but also against a section of the media which published his allegations.

The stage was set for Mr Ganesan and Mr Ramachandran to join the DMK, a strategy by which Tamil Nadu’s ruling party would have been able to reduce the MDMK’s strength in the Lok Sabha to just two. However, with a full-blown feud now on between the warring factions of the MDMK, Mr Ganesan and Mr Ramachandran are now all set to hold a rival general body meeting of the MDMK, on December 29 in Salem, to prove their majority.

However, with the spat between the Tamil Nadu rivals having reached the capital, it’s clear that both sides would like the support of the Congress, which is providing outside support to the minority DMK government in the state. Though Mr Vaiko is part of the AIADMK combine in the state, the MDMK continues to be a UPA constituent formally — something that has annoyed the DMK no end.