Having served the stick a year ago during Lok Sabha elections, the DMK has now decided to dangle the carrot for former ally PMK, offering a Rajya Sabha seat for former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss, though not immediately.

Responding to the efforts by the PMK to come back aboard the alliance, the DMK high-level decision making committee resolved on Sunday that the estranged ally could be given a seat to the Upper House, though not this time. The term of six members, including Anbumani Ramadoss of the PMK, is expiring in June, and election to those seats will be conducted in three weeks. Party founder S Ramadoss had written a letter to Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi for support, as the party found itself in no position to get him re-elected. The DMK committee that met on Sunday decided to offer one Rajya Sabha seat when the vacancy arises next time – in the meantime, there is Assembly election and elections to the recently-revived Legislative Council in which the PMK is, thus, expected to support the alliance.

“I hope the PMK will accept the offer,” said Karunanidhi after announcing the decision of the party, while a resolution adopted by the meeting urged both sides to move on with the focus firmly on the future.

The party also announced its three candidates for the Rajya Sabha election – KP Ramalingam, S Thangavelu and TN Selvaganapathy – despite there being rumours that one seat could be gifted to Congress, who are now left with one assured seat and many leaders in contention.

Though it is not yet clear what stand would Ramadoss and his party take, the party does not have much options after hopping from alliance to alliance, calling itself the ‘winning element’ – a claim brought to ground by the DMK a year ago.

From the position of the ‘influential minority’, PMK’s clout was reduced considerably after the party failed to get elected even one of its seven LS candidates. Soon after the results were out, its relation with alliance leader AIADMK turned sour, and the major ally went back on its word – an assurance given while the pact was inked before the general elections – on supporting junior Ramadoss’ candidature.

The past one year saw the PMK gravitating towards the ruling party – supporting it inside and outside the Assembly, and more importantly, not criticising it and leading to speculation that it was only a matter of time before the party was accommodated back into the ruling alliance, even though there were reports that a section of DMK seniors was not fully in favour admitting the unpredictable ally back.

However, what was not expected was the post-dated offer that would force the PMK to support the DMK during the Assembly elections. According to political observers, this move would not only ensure better support from the numerically-strong Vanniyar community (whom the PMK claims to represent), it would also enable the DMK to play politics with Congress that has grown on to become more asserting in the absence of other heavyweight parties in the state alliance.