Our way or else... the DMK's history of threatening the UPA

The Congress-led UPA was today reduced to a minority after key ally DMK (verbally) withdrew support to the ruling coalition.

The Central government, however, still enjoys a majority in the Lok Sabha with outside support from the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

The DMK wants the Union government to pass a resolution against Sri Lanka in Lok Sabha which includes the terms ‘genocide’ in addition to condemning human rights violations and war crimes.

Here is a look at previous instances when the DMK threatened to withdraw support to the UPA.

May 2012: Rollback petrol price hike or we’ll withdraw In May last year, the DMK, ousted from power in Tamil Nadu, threatened to withdraw support to the Union government if the UPA did not rollback the hike in petrol price or at least partially reduce the quantum of the increase. The party also organised protests across Tamil Nadu.

The party, however, did not withdraw support claiming it did not want communal forces to come to power.

May 2011: DMK withdraws support over TN seat sharing, but comes around soon after

The DMK also announced its decision to withdraw unconditional support to the Congress-led UPA government over a dispute on seat sharing for the assembly polls in Tamil Nadu the following month.

The Congress wanted 63 seats as against the 60 offered by the DMK. The DMK finally came around to agreeing to the Congress demand for 63 seats in the State elections.

November 2008: Demands ceasefire in Sri Lanka

A year before the 2009 general elections, the DMK threatened to withdraw its ministers from the Union government if the Congress-led government did not push for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

“Neither DMK nor other parties are heartless enough to ignore sufferings of Tamils in the neighbourhood and cling to power. To press for an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka, our ministers in the central cabinet will quit if needed,” Karunanidhi told the state assembly.

July 2006: Threatens pullout if stake in TN based Neyveli Lignite is divested

The UPA 1’s economic reforms programme was dealt a bow when the DMK threatened to withdraw support to the coalition government if any stake in the Tamil Nadu based Neyveli Lignite Corporation was divested.

At that time, the DMK was in power in Tamil Nadu and had 16 MPs in Lok Sabha. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came under tremendous pressure and he immediately decided to put all proposed divestments at bay.