Chennai: In a repeat of 1996, the Congress in Tamil Nadu on Monday was split into two with former Union shipping minister G K Vasan quitting the party and floating a new outfit. The name of the party and its flag will be announced later.
The split was indeed more serious than was expected with many senior leaders of the erstwhile Tamil Manila Congress (TMC), which was floated by Vasan’s father G K Moopanar, moving to the new outfit. Most significant of the lot was former Member of Parliament Peter Alphonse, who was till last week, in the running for the post of TNCC president after B S Gnanadesikan quit the post.
Vasan’s supporters claimed that more than 30 of the 59 district presidents of the TNCC and several former MLAs and MPs have moved into the new party and called it a “vertical split.” Making his announcement, Vasan said for 14 years since the merger of the TMC with the Congress in 2002, he had worked hard under the leadership of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. But he had to part ways as he felt the Congress was not taking efforts necessary to fulfil the aspirations of the people of Tamil Nadu. The party had been out of power for 48 years in Tamil Nadu. But no proper efforts have been made to strengthen the party in the State in order to come back to power,” he pointed out.
Vasan said the vote share of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections was not the reflection of its true strength. In fact, the vote share could be double of the 4.3 per cent it got, he said, adding, it was on this strength that the new outfit would build upon. On whether a regional variant of the Congress would check the growth of the BJP in Tamil Nadu, he said his outfit will chalk a new path in the politics of Tamil Nadu. As far as the BJP goes, he said he stood on a different end.
Those who stood with Vasan on Monday included two sitting MLAs, N R Rengarajan and John Jacob; former MPs Alphonse, Gnanadesikan, S R Balasubramanian, N S V Chitthan; former MLAs Gnanasekaran, Kovai Thangam and Vidiyal Sekar; and former Tiruchi Mayor Charubala Thondaiman. Meanwhile, TNCC chief EV K S Elangovan appealed to Vasan to reconsider his decision.
