Senior Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad has formally announced that the party will fight the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls in an alliance with the DMK. Mr. Azad said the DMK leadership will identify other potential allies and initiate talks. On whether there would be a coalition government after polls, he said such “small things” do not matter at the moment. Azad said the election would be fought under the DMK leadership and put on Karunanidhi’s party the responsibility of roping in more constituents into this alliance, including DMDK.

The DMK-Congress split had also come against the backdrop of the arrests of former Union Minister A Raja and Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha MP, in the alleged spectrum allocation scam.Congress had contested the last Lok Sabha elections on its own and had drawn a blank. It had contested the last Assembly elections along with DMK but secured just five seats.Assembly strength in the state is 234.

Congress is out of power in the key southern state for nearly five decades and has generally been aligning with either of the Dravidian party- DMK or AIADMK. It has contested alone too but without much success.