Stalin wants seat-sharing deal with Cong to be over tomorrow
GoP confident of securing 10 seats, while ruling DMK is firm on 8+1 seat offer.
TNCC chief Selvapurunthagai with MK Stalin (file photo)
CHENNAI: DMK president and Chief Minister MK Stalin is said to have set March 10 as deadline to finalise deals with all allies so as to break the stalemate in the DMK-Congress seat sharing talks, which has been delaying the finalisation of constituencies of minor allies.
If sources in both parties are to be believed, the DMK and Congress have not arrived at a consensus yet in terms of numbers, let alone constituencies, for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Reliable DMK sources disclosed that the high command was unwilling to concede more than nine seats, including Puducherry, while the Congress was driving a hard bargain for retaining its current tally of 10 seats, allotted in 2019 LS polls. According to DMK insiders privy to the talks, Stalin pushed his party leaders to close the talks by March 10, so that allies can look at constituencies.
A highly placed DMK leader told DT Next on condition of anonymity that their leadership was of the view that the Congress, which has settled for less seats in other states, was unreasonable and it must be content with at least a seat less than the 2019 tally. “We have 23 MPs now. In allowing VCK and MDMK to contest on their own symbol this time, we would be losing two more seats. Should Kamal Haasan formalise alliance with us, we would be forced to apportion an additional seat, reducing our share to 20 seats. It would be our lowest in the last three elections. We cannot afford to do that as the leader of the alliance,” the DMK senior reasoned.
Conceding that there was a difference between the two parties over the seat numbers till Friday, a state Congress functionary said that they were hopeful that the deal would be sealed at 10 seats, like in 2019. “We were informed by our AICC bosses that the DMK was close to obliging them, and allot 10 seats. But, there would be a change in at least three constituencies. We were told that the deal would be formalised before Monday,” said a state Congress leader on condition of anonymity.
