Karunanidhi in spot as allies seek seats in Upper House

The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu is in a fix with the Congress, PMK and CPI(M), its partners in the Democratic Progressive...

The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu is in a fix with the Congress, PMK and CPI(M), its partners in the Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA), demanding their pound of flesh for their outside support to its minority government by asking for Rajya Sabha seats. With increasing pressure from the allies, the DMK has indefinitely postponed its meeting with the allies scheduled for Thursday.

The Congress, which could win a seat on its own, had demanded one more of the six seats for which elections have been announced. Party emissary M Veerappa Moily, who met DMK leader and Chief Minister Karunanidhi last week, was understood to have conveyed the party’s wish to contest another seat. Congress president Sonia Gandhi is also learnt to have requested Karunanidhi to consider giving another seat to her party, when she spoke to him over phone on Tuesday.

The PMK, which has Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss as its sole member in the Upper House of Parliament, had also demanded a seat. Karunanidhi had, however, expressed his inability to accept the plea, but promised to consider it in 2010, when the next round of biennial polls was scheduled. Piqued over the rejection, PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss has called for an urgent meeting of the party office-bearers on Wednesday evening, in which the party was expected to take a stand on the issue.

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Last week, CPI(M) state secretary N Varadarajan, whose party has not had a representative in the Rajya Sabha from the state after the late P Ramamurthy, had also requested the DMK chief for a seat.

The DMK, which has a strength of 96, including the Speaker, in the 235-member Assembly, could get elected two of its men to the Upper House without any difficulty, as a nominee should get 34 first preference votes to win in the first count.

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