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N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras
Congress president Sonia Gandhi's hurried nominations to the Rs one billion Tamil Nadu Congress Committee Charitable Trust, just three days after Tamil Maanila Congress founder G K Moopanar's death, has bugged both the parties in the state.
While TMC sees it as arm-twisting aimed at forcing an early merger, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee factions welcome the move, but are unhappy over Sonia's choice.
In a surprising and a legally controversial move, Sonia Gandhi has nominated five trustees to join the lone TMC sympathiser, S Ramaswamy Udayar of Salem.
Moopanar was himself a trustee until death, preceded by the death of former Union ministers C Subramaniam and P Ramachandran last year.
Congress sources justify the nominations, citing Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress president Vazhappadi K Ramamurthy's pending court case seeking the mandatory minimum of three trustees, under the original trust deed.
Against this, the TMC sources see it as a pressure-tactic for forcing president-elect G K Vasan, son of Moopanar, into an early merger of the party with the Congress.
"It is in bad taste," the sources said referring to the fresh nominations being made just three days after Moopanar's death.
Congress sources in Delhi do not rule out merger as a motive, but also point out that Vasan, or anybody else in Moopanar's place, cannot expect the same regard and respect as shown to the departed leader.
"We do not want them to get habituated with treating the Congress casually in the state, and also want to send out clear signals to Vasan about the impediments of running a regional party in his father's absence."
According to these sources, second-line TMC leaders seeking a separate identity for the party, for their own reasons and motives, are out to exploit Moopanar's exit and Vasan's inexperience.
At the same time, they refer to the pending court case as the sole reason for the hurried nominations.
Those familiar with the 'Congress trust case' dating back to the post-Kamaraj era of 1975, when the late P Ramachandran as the Congress (O) president was pitted against the other trustees owing allegiance to Congress (I), after Moopanar had led a Congress (O) faction into its fold, question the legality of Sonia's nominations.
As they pointed out, the trust deed provides for the TNCC president of the day as the ex-officio chairman, with seven other trustees being nominated by the 'elected working committee' of the party.
"Neither the AICC, nor the Congress president has any role in it," they argued, claiming that the trust had functioned without the TNCC president at the helm, after Moopanar founded the TMC in 1996.
"Though successive TNCC presidents had talked about retrieving the trust and its property, the Congress high command did not want to hurt Moopanar," they claimed.
If TNCC factions are happy that the 'TMC has been shown its place, particularly after Moopanar's departure', they are upset over the choice of trustees.
While E V K S Elangovan's choice has been accepted as the incumbent TNCC president, the choice of others have been questioned by those left out.
They include former Union ministers M Arunachalam and Jayanthi Natarajan, Congress Member of Parliament, Sudarshana Nachiappan, and Congress Legislature Party leader, D Yasoda.
Of them, Jayanthi Natarjan is from the TMC, and maintains close links with Sonia Gandhi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, while Sundarsana Nachiappan had trounced TMC Democratic Forum founder and former Union minister P Chidambaram in the Sivaganga Lok Sabha constituency.
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