The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) on Monday dropped the idea of contesting the Srirangam by-election at the last minute following a dictate from the high command.
Sources in the party confirmed that TNCC president E.V.K.S. Elangovan was eager to field a candidate since the BJP is in the fray. A few names were even doing rounds as possible candidates. But on Monday morning, the central leadership shot down the proposal.
A party leader said the party was still recovering from the Lok Sabha defeat and a split engineered by the former Union Minister, G.K. Vasan. “If we contest and score lesser than the BJP, that could be embarrassing,” the leader said.
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The party in Srirangam was unhappy with the decision. “We wanted to contest in the by-election and sent a resolution to the TNCC to field the candidate. We are bit unhappy over the sudden turn of events. However, we accept the decision of high command,” R.C. Babu, president of the district congress committee (south) in Tiruchi, said.
However, Mr. Elangovan said there was no point in contesting as the AIADMK was pulling all stops with “money power” to win the by-election.
“We do not want to waste our time and resources by participating in this election,” he told reporters here.
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Karti yet to respond
Taking a dig at Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, for his comment that a show-cause notice was issued to him without proper application of mind, Mr. Elangovan said he did not think Mr. Karti’s idea of declaring a chief ministerial candidate for the party was a good one.
“We all know who he has in mind when he says that. If we declare that person as the chief ministerial candidate, even those who are voting for the party will stop doing so,” he quipped.