Alagiri briefs Congress top brass on talks between DMK, DMDK

Alagiri met the party-in-charge of Tamil Nadu, Mukul Wasnik and another senior leader on Tuesday. The buzz in TNCC headquarters Sathyamurthy Bhavan was that the Congress leaders from the State have met the national bosses to discuss the likely apportionment of two seats from its tally of nine seats in the event of the DMDK joining the DMK alliance.

However, top-level TNCC sources told DT Next that the state and national leaders discussed the choice of seats. Ruling out any reduction in its tally, a senior Congress leader said, “We were allotted nine seats even when there was a likelihood of the PMK joining our alliance. So, there is no possibility of us forgoing the two seats to accommodate the DMDK.”

“We have not received any communication from the DMK regarding either the DMDK coming on board, or us compromising on the seats allotted to us,” he said.

“If the DMK ropes in the DMDK in, it has to manage from its quota. Stalin is capable of handling the minor seat sharing crisis,” said another Congress senior, requesting anonymity.

Curiously, most Congress leaders concurred that the DMK’s offer to Vijayakant was a knee-jerk reaction and said a spent force like the DMDK does not bring much to the table.

If information trickling out of the DMK camp were something to go by, the party may have offered up to 4 Lok Sabha seats to the DMDK, which was also interested in a Rajya Sabha berth plus ‘other’ considerations.