This story is from January 27, 2015

DMK has no luck with common candidate

With the Congress announcing that it will neither contest the Srirangam byelections nor support any other candidate, it was apparent on Monday that DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s call for a common candidate of an united opposition was not taken seriously by any party.
DMK has no luck with common candidate
CHENNAI: With the Congress announcing that it will neither contest the Srirangam byelections nor support any other candidate, it was apparent on Monday that DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s call for a common candidate of an united opposition was not taken seriously by any party.
Apart from Congress, PMK, MDMK, GK Vasan’s TMC and few other smaller parties also decided not to contest or support candidate of any other party.
CPM and BJP besides some smaller outfits have fielded their candidates. This shows that the opposition is still divided in the state and none of the parties want to take any strong political line with the assembly elections just 5 months away.
After unilaterally announcing his party’s candidate for Srirangam assembly by-election, DMK chief M Karunanidhi mooted the idea of projecting the party’s nominee N Anand as a united opposition candidate. Earlier, DMK had made a similar request for the Yercaud bypoll.
Left parties are cut up with Karunanidhi for not consulting them before announcing his party candidate’s name. “We had feelers from DMK leaders for a common candidate proposal. But we think the political situation in the state has not changed much and many of our leaders were against supporting DMK,” a senior CPM leader said.
A former union minister said his party had approached DMDK, Congress and left parties besides few others. “We thought this is the right time to unite the opposition against AIADMK. But parties were not giving positive signals. We were hoping to get the support of Congress and our second rung leaders negotiated with Congress leaders in Chennai and Delhi. A section within the party lobbied not to give any support to DMK,” the former minister said.
The DMK leader said that the party leadership was entertaining the hope of uniting the opposition since the trade unions of various opposition parties came together to take on the government during the transport employees strike. “Relatively there was a better floor co-ordination among opposition parties in the last assembly session. So we tried for a common candidature. But it failed,” he said. VCK is yet to decide on supporting DMK.
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