Mani Shankar Aiyar blasts Congress over alliance with Vijay's TVK: ‘Political stupidity, immorality’

While the Vijay-led TVK defeated the DMK, Congress's ally in the INDIA bloc, it still doesn't have enough numbers to form a stable government.

The Congress's decision to form an alliance with the Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam(TVK) in Tamil Nadu has created rift not just within the INDIA alliance bloc, but also within the Congress party itself. The latest in this has been veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's criticism of his own party.

File photo of veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. (PTI)

Aiyar on Friday slammed the party for the alliance move saying it had ‘violated’ Mahatma Gandhi's injunction of ‘government by morality’. Track updates on TN govt formation

“In November 1925, a hundred years ago, Mahatma Gandhi laid down the injunction in his Gujarati magazine, Navjeevan, that Swaraj should mean government by morality. And it is this injunction that has been violated by the Congress Party, Mahatma Gandhi's party, in the recent decision to jump ship and join the TVK. After having opposed the TVK in the last election. Such politics of expediency is not the way forward,” Aiyar said.

Actor-politician Vijay's TVK defeated the ruling DMK, a Congress ally in the INDIA bloc, in the recently concluded Assembly elections. While MK Stalin's DMK lost the elections, TVK, despite securing highest number of seats, is not near the halfway mark of 118 required to form a stable government. The TVK managed to secure 105 seats.

Following the results on May 4, the Congress, which has won 5 seats in the assembly elections, accepted TVK's request to support them in forming the government in Tamil Nadu. Even this alliance, which the Congress formed at the risk of its opposition alliance at the Centre, falls short of numbers to form the government.

Launching a sharp attack at his party, Aiyar dubbed the move as “political flat-footedness' and said, “There's also a certain political flat-footedness involved in this decision because we thought that by defecting from the DMK alliance, the other smaller members of the alliance, smaller even than us, would also defect, but none of them has defected. And therefore, we are left absolutely in limbo, we have committed the immorality of joining Vijay but also committed the political stupidity of not ensuring that he has a majority.”

“So, there is a hung assembly, and we are hanging in the air. Is this either good sense or good politics or good morality? What criterion is satisfied by this kind of politics of expediency? I don't think we can move forward with this kind of politics,” the senior leader said.

As the Congress's decision to ally with the TVK in Tamil Nadu, the DMK has accused Congress of “backstabbing” the alliance at a crucial moment.

Akhilesh Yadav's veiled dig at Congress

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also seemed to take a veiled dig at the Congress for its TVK tie-up move after he posted a photograph with TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee with the caption, "We are not the ones who abandon each other in times of difficulty.”

Yadav met Mamata at her Kolkata residence on Thursday following TMC's poll debacle as he was among the INDIA bloc leaders who backed her claims of poll rigging by the BJP that dethroned Mamata from Bengal after 15 years.

The meeting was seen as part of broader opposition efforts to reassess strategy after recent assembly election losses.