Cong, DMK join hands

After a gap of 24 years, the Congress and the DMK clinched an alliance deal for contesting the Lok Sabha polls and agreed to work together to defeat "communal forces" in the country and to form a "secular" government at the Centre.

Both the parties were in alliance in 1980, when Indira Gandhi stormed back to power after the Congress debacle in the 1977 polls.

Announcing the formation of the alliance at a joint press conference here today, Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's special emissary, and DMK chief M Karunanidhi said, "We have agreed to work together to defeat the communal forces and to form a secular government at the Centre".

The modalities of seat sharing would be discussed after the announcement of Lok Sabha polls, both the leaders said after an hour-long luncheon meeting at Karunanidhi's house.

On the MDMK, whose leaders had been indicted by the Jain Commission, which went into the conspiracy aspect of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, would be part of the front, Singh said, "We do not want to go into the past".

Karunanidhi asserted that the MDMK would be part and parcel of the "progressive front" formed today. Asked whether the PMK, a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and an ally of the DMK in Tamil Nadu, would be part of the alliance, Karunanidhi said PMK leader S Ramadoss had promised to talk to him on the issue. "I hope that they will also be part of the alliance," he said.

Singh said, "I have come here to establish a new relation of trust and confidence with M Karunanidhi and the DMK".

On the prime ministerial candidate of the alliance, he said, "the prime minister will be decided by the people and the leaders of the secular parties".

Asked whether it would be disadvantageous for the front to go to the people without a prime ministerial candidate, he said, "I do not think that we are at a disadvantage".

On whether he would be the prime ministerial candidate of the front, Singh said, "I am not in the race. It has to be decided by leaders of the secular front".

Asked who would lead the alliance in Tamil Nadu, Karuna-nidhi said the DMK would lead the alliance.

"I do not want to be leader of the alliance, but others want me to be the leader," he said. Singh said Karunanidhi was not a leader of Tamil Nadu alone but "a great leader and one of the builders of the nation. His life and work has inspired many in the country".

Former Union ministers TR Baalu and A Raja, DMK deputy general secretary MK Stalin and TN Congress unit chief GK Vasan also took part in the talks.

On the Bharatiya Janata Party's claim that the nation's economy was "shining" under the NDA rule, Singh, a renowned economist, said, "Only stock brokers are shining. Farmers and those who had deposited their money in the banks are suffering".