Chennai: A faction of the Tamil Nadu Congress in Sivaganga, a party stronghold, passed a resolution earlier this month to not renominate Karti P. Chidambaram, son of veteran party leader P. Chidambaram, from the constituency for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. However, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has blamed the act on “rebels”, saying another resolution passed by local leaders had endorsed Karti’s candidature from the seat.
At a 3 February meeting led by former Union minister E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan and former Congress Legislature Party leader K.R. Ramasamy, it was decided that Karti had “hurt Congressmen” with his remarks last month “in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”. He was referring to a TV interview where Karti was asked if Rahul Gandhi could be a match for the PM.
Ramasamy is also the state Congress unit’s disciplinary action committee chairman.
Reached for comment, Natchiappan said: “Karti’s way of speaking in favour of Modi in comparison to Rahul ji (Congress leader Rahul Gandhi) hurt the feelings of Congress voters and alliance partners.”
However, AICC coordinator for Sivaganga constituency, N. Arul Pethiah, told ThePrint that “another resolution endorsing Karti’s candidature has been passed by 95 percent of the Sivaganga district Congress committee, and by block presidents from the six assembly constituencies that fall under the Sivaganga Lok Sabha seat”.
Arul went on to term the meeting against Karti a “rebel meeting”.
He said it was “shocking and unbecoming” that the disciplinary action committee chairman was also present at the meeting.
The Congress and the DMK are in the middle of seat-sharing talks for the Lok Sabha elections, and Sivaganga is a key subject in the discussions. Sources from the Congress and the DMK told ThePrint that both are eyeing the seat for themselves.
According to Arul, he had been sent by the AICC to Sivaganga to meet the district and block committee members there to understand the ground situation.
With the help of the Sivaganga district committee, three meetings were held, with each meeting covering two assembly constituencies, he said.
“The meetings with the office-bearers, block leaders, and town presidents were completed smoothly and the popular opinion of Karti as a candidate for the Lok Sabha polls was confirmed,” he added.
He further said that “the details of the rebel meeting”, findings of the AICC in the district committee meetings, and the resolution in favour of Karti had all been conveyed to the Congress high command.
ThePrint reached Karti via mail and call with queries but the Sivaganga MP refused to comment on the issue.
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Eye on Sivaganga
Last month, in an interview to a Tamil TV channel, while responding to a question on Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge being a match for Modi, Karti had said: “Considering today’s propaganda machine, no one is a match for Modi.”
To a follow-up question on whether Gandhi could be a match, Karti replied: “In a one-to-one match, and considering the propaganda machine and considering Modi’s natural advantage as PM, it is difficult.”
Speaking to ThePrint, Natchiappan said around 95 percent of party office-bearers had supported their resolution on the grounds that a person “speaking against Rahul Gandhi and praising Modi should not be given another chance as it will not bring good results in the polls”.
Sivaganga, a Congress fortress, elected P. Chidambaram seven times as MP. When Karti emerged as a likely successor, his nomination is believed to have been opposed by a faction within the Congress.
Natchiappan had himself won the seat as a Congress candidate in 1999. “He has been eyeing the seat for a long time. In 2014 and 2019, too, he opposed Karti’s candidature,” said a senior Congress leader on the condition of anonymity.
“There is nothing wrong in others hoping to get the seat. Chidambaram held on to it for a long time,” he added.
In 2014, Karti was pushed to the fourth place after the AIADMK, DMK, and BJP in Sivaganga, but won the seat with 52.36 percent of the votes in the 2019 polls.
According to senior DMK leaders, following the first round of DMK-Congress seat-sharing talks, the party’s Sivaganga unit has requested that the seat be allocated to the DMK.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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