‘We stood by them in difficult times’: DMK-Congress feud escalates after alliance breakup in Tamil Nadu

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Congress, allies until a month ago, are now engaged in a bitter war of words after the Congress quit the alliance and backed actor-politician C. Joseph Vijay in forming the government in Tamil Nadu.

The latest flashpoint came on Sunday when DMK Youth Wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin accused the Congress of “stabbing the party in the back” and urged cadres never to trust the national party again.

“For over 20 years, the Congress party rode on our backs. Today, they have stabbed us in the back. No one should ever forget this. We must never trust the Congress at any point in the future, nor should we ever let them come near us again,” Udhayanidhi said while addressing a DMK Youth Wing meeting in Chennai.

The Congress hit back, saying it had always stood by the DMK during difficult times. “We waited outside when they had a minority,” Congress leader Manickam Tagore told ANI.

The Congress, which won five seats in the Assembly elections, quickly extended support to Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), which secured 208 seats — ten short of a majority. Vijay eventually formed the government with the backing of the Muslim League, CPI, CPI(M) and the VCK, all former DMK allies.

Notably, barring the Congress, all these parties reportedly backed Vijay after consulting DMK president M. K. Stalin, who was said to be keen on avoiding immediate political instability and the possibility of a re-election. However, subsequent remarks by several DMK leaders, including Stalin himself, suggest that the Dravidian major expects the Vijay government to collapse in the near future.

Launching a sharp attack on the Congress, Udhayanidhi blamed the party — rather than the BJP leadership — for the saffron party's consecutive national election victories. He also said DMK workers had shed “blood and sweat” to secure Congress victories in the state, primarily to protect secularism and keep the BJP out of Tamil Nadu.

“Even in this election, a virtually non-existent Congress managed to win five seats solely because of our leader’s instructions and the tireless work of DMK cadres. But immediately after winning, they ran away for the sake of power, without even the courtesy of informing us,” he alleged.

Calling Udhayanidhi’s remarks “unacceptable”, Tagore said the Congress had always stood with the secular alliance.

“The BJP was trying to broker ties between the DMK and AIADMK, which goes against our principles. Any understanding with the BJP will not be tolerated by the Congress,” he said.