DMK, Congress meet again to discuss seat-sharing arrangement

CHENNAI: The second round of seat-sharing talks between the Congress and DMK will be held at the latter's Headquarters here on Tuesday.

While the Congress wants 12 Lok Sabha seats, the DMK was insisting on giving only seven seats.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress contested from nine seats and won eight. However, the only seat which the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) had lost then was the Theni seat where senior Congress leader, EVKS Elangovan lost to O.P. Raveendranathan of the AIADMK. All the 38 of the 39 seats were won by the Secular Progressive Alliance.

The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president, K. Selvaperunthagai and the legislature party leader Rajesh Kumar will participate in the discussions while the DMK delegation will be led by its senior leader, T.R. Baalu.

The DMK district secretaries have already given a report on the actual grassroots strength of the Congress in each district. The DMK leadership is trying to reduce the number of seats on the basis of this report.

A senior leader of the DMK, who is privy to the discussions, told IANS that the party was conceding seats to the Congress as part of the alliance ‘dharma’ and not because of any strength of the Congress. He also pointed out that Congress did not have any strength in most of the constituencies it had contested in the 2019 polls.

In the 2019 general elections there were reports of the DMK cadre being deployed in polling stations on behalf of the Congress candidates as the Congress did not have even booth committees in many of the seats it had contested.

Sources in the Congress told IANS that the party expects the DMK to sanction nine seats just the number it had contested in the 2019 general elections. He also said that if the DMK was not conceding the seats requested by the Congress, either Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi would speak to Stalin and get the seats allocated.