DMK pulls out of UPA govt, withdraws its 6 ministers

Mangalore Today News Network

Chennai, March 5: Just a month ahead of Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, the seven-year-old Congress-DMK alliance is teetering with the DMK deciding to pull of the UPA government at the Centre, withdrawing its six cabinet ministers. At the core of this is the two parties’ inability to agree on seat sharing in the state - the Congress wants to contest more seats than the DMK is willing to give.

After a high-level meeting on Saturday evening, the DMK also said it would now only extend issue-based support to the UPA government. So saying, however, the party has left some doors open. Party spokesman TKS Elangovan said, "If Congress comes with a proposal we will think about it." And senior DMK leader TR Baalu made clear that this was about seat sharing alone and the two parties remained friends.

But at the DMK meeting, party chief M Karunanidhi said: "We are compelled to suspect that these are all the efforts by Congress to remove us from the UPA. Under these circumstances we have to think whether to continue in the government."

The two parties had held three rounds of discussions on seat-sharing for the April 13 Assembly elections this week, but there was little headway. The Congress made it clear that it wanted to contest many more seats than the 48 it had fought on in the last elections and, if the alliance came to power, wanted to be included in the government.

 

Despite DMK pullout, UPA will not lose majority


The UPA is in no danger of losing majority at the Centre even if the DMK pulls out of the government. With 18 members of the Lok Sabha, DMK is the third largest constituent of the UPA after Congress and Trinamool Congress.

 

 

While Congress has 207 MPs, Trinamool Congress is 19-member strong.

Other constituents of the UPA are NCP (9 members), National Conference (3), IUML (2) and JVM and VCK (1 each).

Without the 18-member DMK, the strength of the UPA comes down to 242 from 260. The magic number of simple majority in the 543-member Lok Sabha is 272.

The Congress-led coalition has a cushion available in the form of several parties like the Samajwadi Party and the BSP which provide outside support. SP has 22 members and BSP 21. Jaya Prada is an expelled member of the SP and is seen as a member supporting the UPA.

Besides, four-member RJD, three-member JD-S are also outside supporters.

With the outside support of these parties, the strength of the Congress-led UPA minus the DMK stands at 311, well past the magic figure of 272.

DMK has been with the Congress-led UPA since 2004 and has been generally been a dependable ally for the ruling party at the Centre.