CHENNAI: A day after extending support to TVK even as confirming that VCK is continuing with the DMK alliance, VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan on Sunday night said the party is now in a position to decide whether to stay with the Congress in the INDIA bloc or continue with the DMK alliance. He said the party would take a call within two weeks.
“The decision taken in our high-level committee meeting is that we will not be part of the government directly. We have not directly spoken with TVK president and Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay on power-sharing, but they have conveyed that they want us to be in the cabinet.
We told them this can be discussed after the swearing-in,” Thirumavalavan, who is also an MP representing the Chidambaram Lok Sabha constituency, told a news agency in New Delhi.
The VCK chief said as the Congress has formally walked out of the DMK alliance and decided to share power with TVK in the new government, “in this situation, DMK cannot remain part of the INDIA bloc”.
He added that Lok Sabha member Kanimozhi has already written to Speaker Om Birla, requesting that DMK members be allotted separate seating in Parliament. The letter makes it clear that DMK members can no longer function by sitting alongside Congress-affiliated members, Thirumavalavan said.
The Congress’s surprise move has also triggered concern within the broader anti-BJP camp.
VCK general secretary and MP D Ravikumar, in a post on X, said that the Congress’s decision to walk out of the DMK alliance without prior consultation has generated considerable resentment among DMK cadre.
He cautioned that this could prompt DMK to gradually soften its opposition to BJP.
“Now that the Congress is no longer our ally, is it still necessary to oppose BJP with the same intensity as before? – such questions are already beginning to emerge within the DMK camp, potentially weakening the broader political resistance against the saffron party,” Ravikumar said in the post.
Meanwhile, the VCK chief has extended his party’s good wishes to CM Vijay and the nine ministers who took oath. The MP was unable to take part in the swearing-in ceremony.
