India government rocked by coalition partner pullout

A regional party from southern India announced Tuesday that it was withdrawing from the national ruling coalition, weakening the government which was already a minority in parliament. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), based in the state of Tamil Nadu, had been pressuring the government to condemn Sri Lanka over alleged war crimes against ethnic minority Tamils during the neighbouring island's civil war. Party leader Muthuvel Karunanidhi announced at a press conference in the city of Chennai that his party would withdraw from the left-leaning United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition which has been in power since 2009. "We can't accept the stand of the centre," said Karunanidhi. Unless a solution is found, the move significantly raises the chances of elections before their scheduled date in the first half of 2014, with the UPA a minority since September when another party withdrew its support. The DMK, which depends on Tamil voters who have close ties to their counterparts in Sri Lanka, is the second-biggest party in the coalition with 18 members of parliament and has five positions in cabinet. But Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters Tuesday that the government remained "stable" and that Karunanidhi might be convinced to stay in the coalition if parliament passed a resolution condemning Sri Lanka. "He will review his decision if that resolution is brought before cabinet," he told reporters. The Congress party, which depends on small regional parties for support, had rushed three senior figures including Chidambaram to Chennai at the weekend to find a solution. DMK Party spokesman T.K.S. Elangovan hinted that the announcement could be a pressure tactic designed to force the left-leaning Congress party, which dominates the coalition, to harden its criticism of Sri Lanka. "The (DMK) ministers are yet to submit their resignation," he said. Karunanidhi had warned at the weekend that the DMK would withdraw unless the government supported a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that condemned "genocide and war crimes" in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan forces brought decades of fighting on the island to an end in 2009 in an onslaught against Tamil Tiger separatists which has since been dogged by war crime allegations. The UN estimated that some 40,000 people were killed in the final months of the war, while rights groups put the death toll even higher. Sri Lanka denies that its forces killed civilians. Tamil Nadu, which is separated by a narrow strip of sea known as the Palk Strait, had been a safe haven for Sri Lankan Tamil rebels during the 1980s. The United States is proposing a new resolution at the UN Human Rights Council which would call for Sri Lanka to deliver on promises of an independent probe into alleged war crimes during the war.