DMK, allies clinch deal at last minute for LB polls

Late on Sunday, the DMK released candidates for 34 party districts. Going by the official statement of the DMK, negotiations were on in a few districts still. The party exuded confidence that the district secretaries would release the list of candidates after finalising the seats with the alliance party leaders.

Districts in western Tamil Nadu were among the deadlocked one’s where Congress was playing hard ball with its DMK counterparts. Namakkal and Salem were contributing to the delay in completing the seat sharing talks with allies. Though the demands of allies were largely attributed to the delay, even DMK insiders admitted that the standoff was also due to them starting the negotiations late.

The party high command as well as allies were hopeful that the election would be stayed and delimitation cum reservation would fetch them a few extra months to prepare for the civic polls, but the Supreme Court order giving the go ahead to the State Election Commission (SEC) for the two-stage polls has forced them to do it at the nick of time, admitted a DMK functionary requesting anonymity.

The talks would be finalised overnight and the nomination process would begin fromMonday morning, the functionary added.