'Huge Missed Opportunity...': Congress Leader on Pre-Poll Alliance With TVK
Praveen Chakravarty, slams Congress for missed opportunity to form an alliance with TVK.
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Congress Leader Praveen Chakravarty, while discussing the 4 May election results of Tamil Nadu on the Youtube channel DeKoder, slammed his party for missing an opportunity to form an alliance with Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazagham (TVK).
Tamil Nadu is seeing a surprising chain of events with this year’s elections, with actor-politician Vijay’s party TVK in the lead. What is usually a binary between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), has now become a battle between three parties.
While discussing these results, Praveen Chakravarty said that the Congress should have made an alliance with TVK. He says, “I look at it as a case of huge missed opportunity for the Congress party.” He went on to say that “had the Congress party aligned with TVK, we would have won a two-third majority, and would have dominated the south of India.“
When asked about disagreements within the Congress about the alliance, he says, “Publicly it is very well acknowledged that Mr. Chidambaram was very categorically for a continuation with the status quo. Mr Rahul Gandhi was certainly quite open to the idea. ”
Earlier this year in March of 2026, Praveen Chakravarty met with Vijay to discuss politics and potential alliances of the TVK and Congress. According to The Times of India, when asked whether he prefers an alliance with the TVK, Chakravarty responded, “My preference was for strengthening Congress.”
When Chakravarty was asked about this meeting and whether TVK showed interest in aligning with the Congress party, he said that “their interest was certainly unanimous.”
This year, the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections saw a historic voter turnout of 84.69 per cent. In the last assembly that was held in 2021, DMK won 133 seats.
Currently, according to the Election Commission of India’s website, TVK is leading in Tamil Nadu with 106 seats, with AIADMK with 57, and DMK with 49 seats. 118 seats out of the total 234 are needed to form the government in the state.