Shortly after walking out of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led alliance in Tamil Nadu, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam General Secretary Vaiko on Saturday said his party will continue to extend support to the Congress-led central government.
"We are now part and parcel of the United Progressive Alliance and will continue our unconditional support to it," he told, hours after he inked an electoral pact with the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Vaiko's party has four MPs providing outside support to the government.
Detailing the reasons that led to his exit from the Democratic Progressive Alliance in the state, Vaiko said he took the decision only in order to reflect the "unanimous view of lakhs of party cadres" who wanted the party to ally with the AIADMK.
Vaiko said what hurt him and his cadres the most was DMK chief M Karunanidhi's remarks on Friday in Tiruchirappalli that the MDMK was free to leave the DPA if it was not prepared to accept its offer of 22 seats.
"Moreover, in the past two years, the DMK was ill-treating us in all possible ways, but I was persuading the party cadre not to precipitate matters," he said.
Stating that the MDMK had only entered into an "electoral alliance" and not an "ideological alliance" with the AIADMK for the polls, he said changes in politics cannot be avoided or prevented.
He made it clear that AIADMK will form the government on its own after the polls and his party will definitely not join the ministry under any circumstances.
Vaiko said the MDMK had scaled down its demand from the original 35 seats to a mere 25 but the DMK leadership was not forthcoming to offer more than 22, though it had promised to consider favourably "one or two more" after the current conference in Tiruchirappalli.
Vaiko said his party's stand on the LTTE will continue to remain the same and "there is no change in our approach".
His party's general council will meet in the city on March 11. A committee will soon be appointed to identify the constituencies, he said.