INDIA bloc under strain: Congress breaks 11-year DMK partnership, shifts support to TVK

CHENNAI/NEW DELHI: Congress snapped connected Wednesday its 11-year confederation with the DMK and threw its value down TVK, deepening fissures successful INDIA bloc aft DMK’s rout successful Tamil Nadu.

AICC in-charge Girish Chodankar met TVK main C Joseph Vijay and pledged enactment of Congress’s 5 MLAs. “Congress-TVK confederation volition proceed for section assemblage polls and 2029 Lok Sabha elections,” Chodankar said. The power redraws the state’s governmental representation and blunts INDIA bloc’s transportation of a agreed beforehand against BJP. Congress framed its enactment arsenic a determination to “keep distant communal forces”. “Is INDIA bloc inactive alive?” a elder Congress neta asked, citing frictions with determination partners. “We are inactive uncertain astir numbers to signifier govt successful Tamil Nadu. We volition absorption connected INDIA bloc aft this,” said Su Thirunavukkarasar. DMK netas deed back, branding the determination “backstabbing”.Also Read | 'Backstabbers': INDIA bloc cracks retired successful open; DMK attacks state Congress implicit enactment to TVK's Vijay successful Tamil Nadu AICC spokesperson Pawan Khera rejected the complaint arsenic unfair, recalling DMK’s 2013 interruption with Congress. “Two parties combat unneurotic to halt the rot. If we tin signifier a govt with likeminded parties, what is incorrect with it,” helium said, defending the realignment with TVK, formed successful 2024.

The fallout comes arsenic 2 cardinal bloc partners — DMK and Trinamool Congress — person mislaid caller assembly elections, amplifying perceptions of a shaky coalition. Political observers warned the rupture dents bloc cohesion. “Congress has been adopting a high-handed cognition with allies... This inclination would weaken the agreed absorption to BJP successful 2029,” said commentator Suguna Diwakar. The displacement could besides marque determination partners wary of Congress prioritising its ain electoral calculus implicit confederation arithmetic. Congress netas said the gamble could wage if TVK is folded into the INDIA framework. The day’s tightrope was evident erstwhile Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi reached retired to some DMK main M K Stalin and Vijay aft the results, arsenic Congress sought to negociate state-level realignments without capsizing the broader anti-BJP platform. DMK’s long, uneven concern with Congress — forged, breached and revived aggregate times — present faces its sharpest rupture successful years, though signals suggested it whitethorn inactive stay wrong the INDIA structure nationally