The people of Tamil Nadu are facing an unenviable situation in the forthcoming election. It looks like there will be two major coalitions of parties, one led by the DMK and the other by the AIADMK. The choice is a selection from two evils. They have been in power at one time or the other in the last four decades. The bitter experience of the people is too well known to be described here. The Congress is in a happy position. It has no record of scams in the state during these years simply because it was not in power.
The telecom scandal could be attributed to the DMK. Should the Congress party not leverage the situation to its advantage and say it would contest all the seats on a stand-alone basis? It is likely to gain more seats that way, perhaps the largest among all parties, than by aligning with the DMK. In 2006, V Gopalswamy made the mistake of suddenly joining the AIADMK alliance after criticising it day in and day out earlier just because he did not get the number of seats he wanted from the DMK.
He lost credibility. He got less support than what he would have earned had he not aligned with the AIADMK. The Congress should not repeat that mistake. Rahul Gandhi wanted the Congress in Bihar to contest elections without joining any alliance but it was not a successful experiment. But Tamil Nadu is different. There is no Nitish Kumar there. Someone should bring the matter to his notice and he can give the Congress the direction to fight the elections alone.
A Seshan, Mumbai
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