- Congress backing TVK in Tamil Nadu upset some party leaders like Mani Shankar Aiyar
- Aiyar called Congress's shift to TVK a move lacking morality and political sense
- Vijay's TVK has now achieved a majority with support from smaller parties
The Congress's decision to side with the TVK, whose electoral blockbuster has spelled the end of DMK rule in Tamil Nadu, has not gone down well with every party leader. Criticising his own party, veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has called it a "dreadful" move that "smacked of low political opportunism".
By deciding to jump ship and join the TVK despite opposing them in the last election, he said, the party has violated Mahatma Gandhi's 1925 maxim that Swaraj should be a government based on morality.
"Such politics of expediency is not the way forward," Aiyar told news agency PTI.
Read: Vijay Finally Has Majority, Left And VCK To Extend Support To TVK: Sources
The Congress thought that other smaller parties would follow suit and side with the TVK, but this didn't happen, and the Congress failed to ensure Vijay's majority, he noted.
"We are left absolutely in limbo. We have (not only) committed the immorality of joining Vijay but also committed the political stupidity of not ensuring that he has a majority. So, there is a hung assembly, and we are hanging in the air. Is this either good sense or good politics or good morality? What criterion is satisfied by this kind of politics of expediency? I don't think we can move forward with this kind of politics," said Aiyar, a former Union minister.
However, it has now emerged that the smaller parties have also backed Vijay, helping him with a majority.
Aiyar continued his criticism in an article in the Hindu Tamil, noting, "The Congress won five seats, not because of itself but entirely on the strength of its decades-old junior partnership with the DMK."
This is not the politics of truth of Gandhi's Congress, he added.
Read: Congress Dumps DMK For Vijay Alliance. Then An Akhilesh Yadav Dig
Aiyar also wondered who the Congress would tie up with in future elections if Vijay manages to cobble together a stable majority in a few years. If this gives the BJP a backdoor entry into the political ethos of Dravidian Tamil Nadu, he said in his Tamil piece, "It would prove the worst own goal in the history of political football. Who will ever trust us again?"
The Congress has ditched the DMK and offered conditional support of its five MLAs to the TVK after the Vijay-led party reached out for backing to secure a majority in the assembly. The DMK has called the Congress move "backstabbing."
On its own, the TVK had won 108 seats, with Vijay winning from two constituencies. The DMK was reduced to just 59 while the AIADMK could win only 47 seats.
Short of the 118-halfway mark, even with Congress's support, the TVK had also reached out to the VCK (2), CPI (2), and CPM (4). These parties have also agreed to support Vijay, say sources.
