By G Saravanan
Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on September 04, 2011:
CHENNAI: Shedding light on the DMK’s ‘political thinking’ prior to the 2009 Lok Sabha Elections, a confidential cable sent from the US Consulate in Chennai in June 2008, released by the whistle-blower site Wikileaks has indicated that the Dravidian party preferred to project Congress president Sonia Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate instead of Manmohan Singh.
Quoting the party’s senior strategist, retired businessman Siva Prakasam, the then US Consul General Dennis T Hopper said in the cable that “Sonia Gandhi would be the most appealing in TN while Rahul is “not ready,” and Pranab Mukherjee might be “okay in North India but he would not help much in South.”Source:http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/06/08CHENNAI213.html
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENNAI 000213
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/18/2018
TAGS: IN PGOV
SUBJECT: DMK WON'T BREAK WITH CONGRESS BUT WILL URGE SONIA
TO NAME A PM CANDIDATE
DMK would prefer Sonia, but it's Congress's call
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¶6. (C) Prakasam mentioned that Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh had recently paid a call on Karunanidhi in Chennai, suggesting that Singh had sought Karunanidhi's support for his bid to be the candidate. He emphasized that although the DMK leader would pressure
Congress to project a candidate, he would not advocate for a particular individual. The DMK will not interfere in the Congress party's internal political affairs, Prakasam said. When we asked him to assess the potential Congress candidates, he said that Sonia Gandhi would be the most appealing in Tamil Nadu, Rahul is "not ready," and Pranab Mukherjee might be okay in North India but he would not help much in the South. Prakasam feels that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be a bad candidate: "he is essentially a bureaucrat and he will bear the brunt of
popular anger at the price rise."
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