DMK-Congress start shadow-boxing over seat sharing

While the DMK has been unofficially feeding information to media about it not being ready to even apportion 20 seats to the national party this time, Congress, though late, has gladly joined the perception war now.

 Speculations abound that the state Congress has apprised its national high command about the regional ally leaking information about its reduced seat offer to the Congress. Congress sources with knowledge of the cold war between the allies said the Congress national leaders have concurred with the state party

 unit that they should stand their ground on retaining at least the previous polls’ tally of 41 Assembly seats in the coming elections.

 As if that were not enough, Sivaganga MP Karti P Chidambaram added fodder to the critics by revealing that an exercise was underway to identify the winnable seats of the party. “A very detailed, thorough & scientific exercise is underway to identify seats in which the @INCIndia @ INCTamilNadu will have a competitive edge in the TN elections. This data will be the basis of our seat allocation. This exercise is also capturing the overall mood of the state,” Karti tweeted, endorsing a media report that state Congress was doing a survey for a better bargain with the DMK.

 However, the Congress was unwilling to officially admit the surveys. A senior Congress leader said that no talks were happening between the two parties and it’s at least a few months too early to discuss seat numbers for next year’s Assembly polls.

 The Congress has just joined the perception battle notwithstanding it is common knowledge in both party circles that information spilling out of DMK camp was backed by poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC (Indian Political Action Committee) which has been doing field work for the Dravidian major for a few months now.