DMK Alliance Win Puts Spotlight On Stalin’s Role In National Politics

The DMK+ alliance won the bypoll to the Erode East with a whopping margin of 66,000 seats. Having played it safe by asking the senior Congress leader EVKS Elangovan to stand rather than let one of his sons do, the importance of winning had been anticipated by DMK. The verdict also settles the question of which is the Opposition party that can get the closest to the DMK and that is Edappadi K Palaniswami’s AIADMK. The result was a foregone conclusion but what it does is it adds to the stature of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin as a definitive national figure in any post-2024 Lok Sabha polls scenario. A man who can guarantee close to 40 seats for the combined opposition hoping to down the BJP on a national scale, the numbers assume great significance. And Stalin also presented the sanest view that it was more important to defeat the BJP than haggle over who can be Prime Minister in the unlikely but possible scenario of the combined opposition claiming the numbers. Given the sentiment of the occasion of Stalin’s 70th birthday, a gushing Farooq Abdullah tried to present Stalin as a PM candidate. Stalin brushed that aside while calling for unity in the Opposition ranks when just over a year remains for the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls.