Veteran journalist and political commentator Cho Ramaswamy has said the former Union Minister, G.K. Vasan, was left with no other choice than to quit the Congress as the party high command looked at everyone associated with the erstwhile Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) as undesirable.
Mr. Ramaswamy, who shared a personal equation with Congress leader G. K. Moopanar and who played a major role in the formation of the TMC in 1996 along with actor Rajinikanth, said Mr. Vasan patiently waited all these days, but decided to revolt after the high command ignored the interests of Tamil Nadu.
Asked whether Mr. Vasan would be able to do a Moopanar, he said the Congress itself had weakened, and Mr. Vasan had to rejuvenate his organisation. “I think it will not happen overnight. It will take its own time.”
Mr. Ramaswamy said the TMC had been the nerve centre of the Congress in Tamil Nadu and a majority of the Congress leaders and cadre had always been with it. “Subsequently, they decided to merge it with the parent party. Unfortunately it led to a situation in which everyone connected with the TMC was considered undesirable by the high command, which started ignoring them,” he said.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Vasan had no other choice but to quit the parent body, he said. The TMC faction alone had the strength since successive electoral defeats at the national level and in many States had more or less left the Congress shattered. “Someone has to take the responsibility of reviving the Congress, and Mr. Vasan has decided to act,” he said.
Asked whether he would be able to succeed in his attempts since senior leaders like P. Chidambaram and Jayanathi Natarajan, once part of the TMC, had chosen to stay with the Congress, Mr. Ramaswamy said it had proved the extent of factionalism in the Congress. “In the coming days, the TNCC president, E.V.K.S. Elangovan, will have a tough time obliging leaders of various groups,” he said.
