Stalin's book throws light on how Tamil Nadu rallies sowed seeds for birth of I.N.D.I.A. alliance

Chennai: Penning his experiences gained during the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, DMK President and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin stated that a massive rally held on the occasion of his 70th birthday “sowed” the seeds for all anti-BJP political parties cobbling up the I.N.D.I.A. bloc which gave BJP a run for its money in the historic elections.

Titled Then Thisayin Theerpu (Verdict of the South), a 205-page book written by Stalin, throws light into the strategies drawn by DMK to win all 40 seats at stake in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. It also showcases Stalin's insistence on Congress being the fulcrum of any anti-BJP formation, the party’s election manifesto, and his speeches during the campaign trail.

The book says I.N.D.I.A. alliance became a reality because of Stalin’s insistence since 2021 that there was no way that the BJP could be defeated until all political parties opposed to it came together under one umbrella and fought the Lok Sabha polls.

Stalin flaunted the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) stitched by him by bringing together about a dozen political parties as a model to be followed at the national level to defeat the BJP.

Though the bloc couldn’t prevent the BJP from coming to power, it did reduce the saffron party’s score to 240 from 303 in 2019, forcing it to depend on allies like TDP, and JD (U).

Touted as a “historic document” as it is being brought out after the SPA swept the state decimating the AIADMK and BJP for the first time in 20 years, the book ends with Stalin’s speech at the ‘victory rally’ in Coimbatore where he set an ambitious target of winning 200 assembly seats for the alliance in the 2026 elections.

“Exactly 382 days to the day the Lok Sabha poll schedule was announced on March 16, 2024, a historic event unfolded in Chennai as leaders of political parties converged to celebrate the 70th birthday of DMK chief M K Stalin. It was at this meeting, the seeds for a new alliance with Congress as its pivot was mooted,” Stalin notes in the book.

Almost two years before this meeting, Stalin, the book notes, told Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to stitch a Tamil Nadu-style alliance at the national level while the latter was visiting the state to campaign for the alliance candidates.

“The March 2023 meeting was a 2.0 version of the 2021 Salem rally. It is at this meeting in 2023 in the presence of leaders like Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge that Stalin categorically said talks of a third front are pointless and asked political parties to understand this simple arithmetic and stand united,” the book says.

Terming the one year from March 2023 to March 2024 as the “harvest period”, Stalin talks in detail about his visits to Patna, Bengaluru, and Mumbai for the I.N.D.I.A. alliance meetings and his trips within Tamil Nadu to give pep talk to the DMK cadres and booth committee members on the need to win the 2024 elections.

The book says that Stalin campaigned for 20 days, addressing 20 rallies in all 40 Lok Sabha constituencies by travelling 2,636 km across Tamil Nadu.

“Like the 40/40 victory which is historic, this book is also a historic document as M K Stalin led the alliance to an emphatic victory winning all seats. This came 20 years after M Karunanidhi-led DMK alliance achieved the same feat in 2004,” the book concludes.