Five DMK ministers to resign today
New Delhi, Mar 20 : Five Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) ministers are likely to submit their resignations to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday. DMK spokesperson TKS Elangovan has said that the party is now free from coalition politics and that "there is no window for reconsideration."
UPA ministers like P Chidambaram also hinted at a press conference in the morning along with other ministers that the government will not change its foreign policy under the pressure of domestic politics.
The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'s southern ally DMK on Tuesday pulled out of the government in New Delhi over its "soft stand" on the atrocities on Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamils vis-a-vis a US-sponsored resolution at the UNHRC session at Geneva, dealing a body blow to the main constituent Congress party led coalition.
DMK leader TR Baalu on Tuesday night handed over the letter of withdrawal of support to President Pranab Mukherjee and then told reporters that the ministers will step down on Wednesday when their chief M Karunanidhi "will decide whether we give outside support or not."
DMK, which was the biggest ally of the UPA after another regional party Trinamool Congress walked out last September over economic issues, said it would not lend outside support too to the Congress-led government. Five DMK ministers are quitting the government.
The UPA has been reduced to a minority after the exit of 18 DMK MPs.
While the government needs 271 lawmakers' support to survive any confidence vote in the 543-strong lower house (Lok Sabha), it has about 235 seats of its own along with other alliance partners which are part of the government.
But the government is banking on the backing of two other regional parties - Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)- from outside. Their support will take the figure of UPA to roughly 277 members.
The DMK wanted India to go for a strongly worded resolution against Sri Lanka for its atrocities and killings of ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka that followed after the civil war in that country ended with the defeat of the LTTE.
"I am pulling out of the UPA government," said DMK chief M Karunanidhi in Chennai, the capital of Tamil majority Tamil Nadu state, on Tuesday morning.
He said he felt let down by the government and his party DMK has always worked for the Tamils both in India and in Sri Lanka.
"Sri Lanka has committed serious crimes and the DMK has always condemned these crimes, " Karunanidhi had said, whose party wanted India to incorporate words like "war crimes" and "genocide" in the UNHRC resolution sponsored by the USA which will go for voting end of this month.