Chennai: MDMK, which is extending outside support to the UPA Government, today (Jan 1,2007)said it would continue to be part of the alliance.

MDMK Chief Vaiko told reporters that soon after the party had quit the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance in March last, he was prepared to quit the UPA and had even prepared a statement to announce the decision.

But when he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain the circumstances under which his party quit the DPA, he was told by the Prime Minister to be part of the alliance, Vaiko said and added there was no change in the situation.

His party was getting invited to the meetings of the whips of UPA constituents and was represented in them, he said.

He said AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa, with whose party MDMK had struck an alliance for the assembly polls, had also told him that there was no need for him to quit UPA.

Vaiko said the meeting convened by Gingee N Ramachandran, after he was stripped of his post of deputy general secretary, at Salem recently, was 'illegal'.

"Only over 100 general council members, most of whom had been expelled from the party for 'indiscipline', had attended the meeting," he said.