PM’s coalition politics comments won’t affect ties with Congress: DMK

CHENNAI - Reacting on Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s comments that the coalition politics was being a hindrance to governance, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on Wednesday said the comments on coalition politics will not affect its ties with Congress.

“I don’t think so. He has not said anything wrong about coalition,” said DMK spokesperson T K S Elangovan, adding that the Prime Minister had not accused the coalition.

“Raja had very clearly stated that he had followed the TRAI recommendations and procedures adopted by his predecessors,” he added.

Earlier today, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury criticized the Prime Minister over the coalition politics, saying that if coalition politics was tying the hands of the Prime Minister, he should refrain from running a government.

During his interaction with top television editors of the country earlier in the day, Dr. Singh said though he was aware of his responsibilities, there were certain limitations of coalition politics.

Commenting on the 2G spectrum scam, Dr. Singh said: “Since the Ministries of Finance and Telecom had agreed to continue with the existing policy of allocating 2G spectrum. I did not feel that I was in a position to insist that auction must be insisted.”

On retaining Raja as the Telecom Minister in the UPA-II, Dr Singh said in a coalition government, the choices of the Leaders of the Alliance partners have to accepted and that the DMK had suggested Raja and Dayanidhi Maran into the Union Cabinet.

“At that moment, there was no reason to feel that anything wrong had been done,” he said. (ANI)