Ramadoss likely to resign today

Congress may go through some rough patches as Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss is likely to resign from the government after its party PMK, one of the allies in Tamil Nadu, is poised to desist UPA and align with the opposition AIADMK.

Ramadoss will reportedly tender his resignation to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday (March 24), however no official statement has come yet.

“The timing of the resignation is being worked out, while the decision to align with AIADMK has been finalised,” said a PMK aide in Chennai.

Sources said the move came following the decision by his father and party founder S Ramadoss to join the AIADMK.

The seat-sharing disagreement with the Congress finally led PMK to leave its hand and catch AIADMK which offered seven Lok Sabha constituencies and a Rajya Sabha seat in the future.

This naturally means we are quitting the United Progressive Alliance coalition, a senior PMK aide said. He reportedly said a formal announcement of patching up with Jayalalitha’s AIADMK would be announced on March 26.

PMK wanted seven seats in Tamil Nadu which the Congress was reluctant to give. Meanwhile, Congress sources said that Ramadoss was set to meet the top brass today afternoon in an attempt to resolve the coalition crisis. M Velu is also likely to resign.

UPA’s strength in Tamil Nadu has remarkably reduced to 26, including DMK’s 16 and Congress’ 10, as compared to 2004 when the tally was 39-0 after allies like MDMK, CPM, CPI and now PMK aligning with opposition AIADMK.

Tamil Nadu will go to single-phase polling on May 13 to elect 39 MPs.