‘My Heart Was In My Mouth’: Sonia Gandhi Reflects On Reaching Out To DMK Ahead Of 2004 Polls

Sonia Gandhi has recalled how she stitched together opposition alliances before the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, including an uneasy outreach to the DMK that later fed into the formation of the United Progressive Alliance. In her memoir Belonging: A Journey Of Love, the 79-year-old former Congress chief writes that she reached out to Sharad Pawar, who had left the Congress five years earlier, and to the left parties, including the CPI, CPI(M) and Forward Bloc, while “calling on every possible ally” she could to defeat the BJP.

She writes that the effort came as opposition parties saw an opening against the BJP-led government. That wider exercise also led her to weigh an alliance with the DMK, despite the personal and political burden the move carried after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

The talks ended with colleagues working out seat-sharing and campaign coordination. The formal United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was formed on 4 May 2004.

DMK Alliance Misgivings

The hardest part, Gandhi writes, was Tamil Nadu. “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.

Gandhi 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 links that hesitation to the memory of Rajiv Gandhi’s killing and to the Congress party’s long distrust of the DMK after it.

Gandhi says DMK workers backed the LTTE, the terrorist group that killed Rajiv Gandhi, in the 1991 elections and that some party members had openly threatened him. She also recalls that the Jain Commission report in 1997 blamed a DMK leader for quietly aiding the Tamil assassins, prompting the Congress to pull support from the IK Gujral government.

Alliance Talks Begin

The choice tormented her. “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 describes how she justified the move to herself. “Perhaps Rajiv himself would have gone ahead with this alliance, if he knew it was necessary to strengthen our front against the BJP.”

She moved first. “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. They did not speak the same language, but the exchange was warm. Later meetings drew them together over the arts, literature and Tamil heritage, and the bond stayed cordial.

DMK Response to Memoir

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.