CHENNAI, Jan 28: Tamil Maanila Congress president G K Moopanar offered a Rajya Sabha seat to the Tamil Nadu unit of the Communist Party Marxist (CPM) on Tuesday, in an effort to placate the party and bring it back into the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Tamil Maanila Congress front.The CPM, offended by the offer of a single (Coimbatore) constituency by the DMK, had decided to contest on its own in the coming Lok Sabha polls.
Launching a low-key campaign for the front from the threshold of the `Mangadu' temple in suburban Chennai, Moopanar, who was reacting to the CPM charge that the two major parties in the front wanted to retain all the constituencies for themselves, pointed out that both the Left parties were initially allotted a seat each. The Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi had also promised a RSseat to the CPI. (Meanwhile, with the CPM declining the offer of a seat, the DMK allotted another seat to the CPI, taking its total to two). On its part, the TMC was willing to offer its lone RajyaSabha seat, which will come up for election in two months' time, to the CPM, Moopanar assured. He hoped that the CPM would take a decision favourable to the front.
In an obvious reference to the AIADMK-BJP front, Moopanar stated that while the Opposition camp had come up with a new combination for the coming elections, the DMK-TMC alliance which swept the polls in the state continued even now. The combine would win this time too, he added. Moopanar, who made no direct reference to arch rival J Jayalalitha, focussed his brief address on `communal forces'. In a tempered attack, he urged the people to live together in communal harmony. ``Do not allow the communal forces to enter the state or the country,'' he cautioned, in a veiled attack against the BJP.
Pointing out that his party office-bearers, irrespective of which community they belonged to, had accompanied him to the temple, Moopanar said the deity would not question the presence of a Muslim or a Christian in her `abode'.
Urging the DMK and TMCpartymen to work harmoniously without even the ``smallest of differences'', he pointed out that he himself had started his campaign from the Sriperumbudur (reserve) constituency from which DMK candidate T Rajirathinam was contesting.
He said the United Front Government had given a good governance for 18 months. The performance of the nine DMK and TMC Union ministers, in particular, had been `exemplary' and `not stained by charges of corruption or inefficiency'.
Confident of a victory for the front, he vowed he would come back to the temple again with the `vetrikani' (fruit of success).
`Black or white?'
When TMC chief G K Moopanar launched his election campaign from `Mangadu' temple, residents of the area didn't seem to be much interested in all the talk about politics. While a few of them gathered near the dais when Moopanar began his speech, a large number of women who flocked to the temple were more curious about the TMC chief's complexion. Revathy, who had come to offer her prayers at thetemple, was heard telling her middle-aged friends, ``I just want to see if he is fair or dark.''
Sitting in his shop near the meeting venue, elderly Muthu seemed blase about the DMK-TMC front's election campaign. Nevertheless, he remarked, ``This is a DMK bastion and they are sure to win.'' Does he think people still remember the alleged corruption of the previous AIADMK regime? ``Public memory is short. They probably forgot everything within a month,'' he quipped.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
