"Won't It Amount To Betrayal Of Rajiv?" Sonia Gandhi On DMK Alliance Dilemma

New Delhi: With the 2004 Lok Sabha polls approaching, Sonia Gandhi went about forging alliances. She reached out to Sharad Pawar, who had left the Congress five earlier earlier, the left parties - CPI, CPI(M), Forward Bloc, others - "calling on every possible ally" she could to defeat the BJP.Writing in her memoir 'Belonging: A Journey Of Love', Gandhi opened up about the intense moral and emotional conflict she faced when the Congress party considered an alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in the years following Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.Recalling the political landscape of the early 2000s, Gandhi notes that the moment appeared right for opposition forces to unite against the BJP-led government. Yet the idea of partnering with the DMK filled her with deep unease, she says."For me the most challenging personal assignment was to bring into alliance the DMK, whose leader M Karunanidhi was said to be unhappy with the BJP government. It was the right moment to make contact, since of all the forces needed to come together to challenge the BJP, the DMK was the most important party in the south," she writes.The 79-year-old former Congress chief says she could "sense that some of my colleagues from Tamil Nadu were keen on an alliance but did not know how to broach the subject to me".She writes that the DMK cadre had been vocal supporters of the LTTE, the terrorist group that killed Rajiv Gandhi, during the 1991 elections, and that some in the party had openly threatened him.The Jain Commission's report in 1997, which held a DMK leader responsible for tacitly supporting the Tamil assassins, had even prompted the Congress to withdraw support from the IK Gujral government."With those painful memories returning to torment me, I'd ask myself, 'What should I do? If I join hands with them, won't it amount to a betrayal of Rajiv?'" Gandhi recounts.She then considered another possibility: "Perhaps Rajiv himself would have gone ahead with this alliance, if he knew it was necessary to strengthen our front against the BJP.""A decision had to be taken urgently, for a larger cause. My heart was in my mouth, and I was trembling when I made that first telephone call to M Karunanidhi to initiate a conversation with the DMK," she writes.Though they did not share a common language, the conversation was cordial.Over subsequent meetings, they found common ground in the arts, literature and Tamil heritage, and the relationship grew cordial.Colleagues worked out seat arrangements and campaign coordination, culminating in the formal United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on 4 May 2004.Responding to the memoir, DMK leader TKS Elangovan said Sonia Gandhi had allied with the DMK because it was the only viable way to take on the BJP in Tamil Nadu.He reiterated that the DMK had supported the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils and had never endorsed Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.