CUDDALORE: Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi president and Chidambaram MP Thol Thirumavalavan on Tuesday said that while his party is firm on its position to not form electoral alliances with casteist or religious political parties, the VCK was not in a position to advise or pressurise the DMK on who the ruling party should include in its alliance.
Addressing reporters here, he said, “Only the DMK leadership can decide which parties can join its alliance. VCK neither has the power nor the right to tell which party should be included and which party should not be,” he said.
“Besides being firm on our position, we are not in a position to advise or pressurize the DMK,” Thirumavalavan, whose party has been in alliance with the DMK since 2019 said.
His remarks came in the backdrop of VCK’s stance that it will not be part of an alliance that included the PMK and ongoing speculations that Dr S Ramadoss’ faction of the PMK may be accommodated in the DMK-led alliance.
Thirumavalavan said his party took a principled position that it will not form alliance with any casteist or religious political parties after the 2011 assembly elections and has remained firm on this.
He said that while the party did not have personal animosity towards any particular party, only by being firm on its principles can his party safeguard its credibility among the public.
On the electoral prospects of the DMK-led alliance, of which the VCK is part of, he said there is no alliance in Tamil Nadu that has the strength to challenge the alliance led by the DMK. He added that only the parties that earlier left the alliance have now come together in the AIADMK-BJP alliance and now new parties have joined that formation.