The DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance, which scored an impressive win in the state elections in May, is now facing a crisis of sorts with the allies, including the Congress, the PMK and the Left parties, openly accusing the ruling DMK of 'betraying' them in the just-concluded civic elections. Chief minister M. Karunanidhi, has however played down the 'revolt' as a minor issue that could be sorted out through talks.
 
Though he has been carping with Karunanidhi on various issues, such as opposing the government proposal for building a satellite city on the southern outskirts of Chennai, the PMK leader Dr S. Ramadoss was never as harsh as he was in his sharply worded statement of Saturday (October 28), wherein he slammed the DMK for robbing "as many as 40 posts" of chairmen/presidents of local bodies across Tamil Nadu, allotted to the PMK during the negotiations held by the DMK with its DPA allies.
 
Senior DMK functionaries and even ministers in fact had assisted these 'rebels' to grab the PMK posts by force, Dr Ramadoss alleged.

Reminding Karunanidhi that he had warned his party members of expulsion if they contested the posts allotted to the allies, Ramadoss demanded to know when these DMK 'rebels' would be expelled as promised. Striking a belligerent note, he said all eyes were on Karunanidhi to see if he would honour his promise of action against 'rebels' for defying his diktat.
 
The Tamil Nadu Congress president M. Krishnaswamy was only slightly milder in expressing his anger at the DMK for 'treachery'.
 
"The DMK members betrayed us in some places. Nobody can deny that injustice has been done. We will watch the response of the DMK leadership," he said, while detailing the several posts his party had lost to the DMK 'betrayal'.
 
The Communists in the DPA were even more upset with big brother DMK as unlike the PMK and the Congress, the Left parties not only lost their posts to the DMK but also saw their cadres beaten up.
 
"The DMK men have taken away more than nine posts allotted to the CPI.
Besides, our cadres were beaten up both by the DMK members and the police. Our candidate's car was burnt in Muthupettai. They (DMK) think they can do anything just because they are running the government," CPI state secretary D. Pandian said, sounding very bitter and angry.
 
"It is a very serious matter. The DPA is facing a crisis. You could even say cracks have begun in the alliance," said the CPI chief. However, he did not want to blame the DMK leadership entirely, pointing out that Karunanidhi has already cracked the whip against the 'rebels' and expelled 24 of them.

Claiming that the CPI, on its part, had honoured the agreement over sharing the civic posts—in city corporations, municipalities and panchayats—Pandian said, "We have stood by our commitment. It is now for the DMK leadership to salvage the situation and protect the alliance." He said the matter had been taken up with Karunanidhi and he hoped that the chief minister would resolve the issue in the
interests of protecting the DPA unity.

The DMK's "betrayal" will be among the main topics for discussion at the CPM  meeting in Chennai during October 30 and November 1. "We will take stock of the situation during our deliberations. There is no doubt that a lot of unpleasantness has taken place in these elections. We are certainly not happy at the manner in which the DMK members behaved in the places allotted for our party," said Mr T. K. Rangarajan, Marxist central committee member.

The DMK has thus landed itself in an embarrassing situation with its own allies charging it with 'betrayal' in the sharing of the posts in the civic bodies. Already, the allies have condemned the violence during the elections to these local bodies on October 13 and 15, which they alleged was orchestrated by the DMK 'goons' with the police helping. All this must be sweet music to the ears of opposition leader Ms Jayalalithaa heading the rival AIADMK.
 
Faced with a Herculean task of salvaging not just the DPA unity but also his own image—since the allies expressed apprehension that a disciplined party like the DMK was unable to contain rebellion—Karunanidhi came out with a counter-attack on Sunday (October 29). His statement, in mild yet sharp rebuke of Ramadoss for rushing to the media instead of sorting out 'mild' issues through internal discussions--detailed the places and posts that the DMK helped the PMK to win even though the latter had a mere miniscule presence there.

In a huge democratic exercise that was the local body elections—over 1.3 lakh posts from the city corporations down to the village panchayats were involved—it was not uncommon to face a few minor hiccups from a handful of black sheep violating party discipline and hurting the arrangement between the allies. "Should the entire party, the DMK, be blamed for that?" asked the octogenarian in anguish.
It now remains to be seen if his sagacious persuasive skills will soften the ruffled DPA feathers.