Maanila Congress talks with AIADMK fail

The Tamil Maanila Congress on Thursday turned down AIADMK’s proposal to contest the Assembly election with its “two leaves” symbol, effectively applying the brakes in the talks between the two parties. The fledgling party led by G.K. Vasan insisted that it would contest the ensuing elections only on the “coconut farm” symbol allotted to TMC by the Election Commission.

As hundreds of cadres turned up at the party headquarters in Teynampet hoping to hear good news on the alliance, Mr Vasan convened a meeting of senior leaders and district functionaries and told them his negotiations with the ruling party have not yielded the desired results. He also assured partymen that he would take a decision on the alliance in the next two days, with just two options now available to him — to accept the invitation from MDMK chief Vaiko to join the People’s Welfare Alliance or to contest alone. “More than 2,000 party leaders who had evinced interest in contesting the Assembly elections told me during the interview process that the party should align with AIADMK. To fulfil your wishes, I did talk to the AIADMK and tried to clinch a fair deal, but 99 per cent there will be no deal,” Mr Vasan told his partymen.

“The ruling party wants the TMC to contest on the ‘two leaves’ symbol. The TMC will contest only on the ‘coconut farm’ symbol and this has been communicated to the concerned. Unless this demand is accepted, there is no way,” he told the TMC leaders.

Senior TMC leaders told this newspaper that the ruling party was willing to give 15 seats but was adamant on it contesting on the “two leaves” symbol, citing AIADMK’s Mission 234. “Mr Vasan told the AIADMK leaders with whom he was negotiating that it was just not possible to contest on any symbol other than ‘coconut farm’. He also told them that his party was not a single-man outfit but one which has a strong cadre base,” a senior leader said.

It was revealed there were some differences on the number of seats to be allotted as well, but the core issue at the centre of the breakdown of the talks was the AIADMK’s insistence that all alliance partners should contest only on the “two leaves” symbol.

Immediately after the news spread that the AIADMK-TMC talks had failed, leaders of the PWA said their invitation to Mr Vasan still stands and that he was welcome to their fold.