Congress gets 25 seats in DMK's Tamil Nadu alliance deal

The DMK on Sunday (March 7) signed a seat-sharing deal with Congress for the upcoming assembly elections and the bypoll to a Lok Sabha seat. The Congress will be contesting in 25 assembly seats and the bypoll from Kanyakumari seat that had fallen vacant following the death of party MP H Vasanthakumar.

This is a drop from the 41 seats allotted to the Congress in the 2016 election. The national party had then won just eight seats out of its allotted quota.

The signing of the pact comes a day after the AIADMK allotted 20 assembly seats and the vacant Lok Sabha seat to BJP. Party leader and Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan has been named as the BJP’s candidate from Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat.

Elections to the 234-seat Tamil Nadu assembly and the bypoll to the vacant Lok Sabha seat will be held simultaneously on April 6. Votes will be counted on May 2.

“We are happy about the pact. In future we may contest even in 200 seats. In politics, the ups and downs are normal. After bringing down the BJP, we will bring Kamaraj regime. To form a secular government is our primary objective,” tweeted KS Alagiri, president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC).

Dinesh Gundu Rao, the Congress in-charge of Tamil Nadu, visited the DMK headquarters Sunday morning to finalise the seat-sharing deal.

“The BJP’s intention is to finish off the AIADMK by entering into an alliance with them. They want to kill all the opposition parties and have ‘one party-one man rule’ in the country. The Congress, DMK, Left, VCK will sweep these elections,” said Rao.

Both the national parties, BJP and Congress, are fighting the assembly election as allies of the two major Dravidian camps in the state, AIADMK and DMK, respectively.

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The Congress was reportedly dragging on the seat-sharing deal till the announcement of the BJP-AIADMK arrangement. And it was also claimed they were in touch with AMMK led by TTV Dhinakaran for the formation of a third front. Talks were there of Congress tying up with actor Kamal Hassan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam.

The DMK was opposed to the Congress’s demand of at least 50 seats keeping in mind the debacle the national party faced in Bihar elections. The MK Stalin-led party offered them just about 20 seats. It may also be noted that after Bihar elections, the Congress had said it would not bargain with the DMK during seat sharing talks.

Speaking to The Federal, Congress spokesperson Gopanna said the party has not yet decided on the candidature from Kanyakumari, the vacant Lok Sabha seat.

“We haven’t decided yet. It will take couple of days to finalise the candidates list who have been selected to contest in the assembly elections,” he added. He also said the party would not take part in public meetings organised by the DMK.

The DMK had earlier said that if the alliance with Congress in Tamil Nadu continues, then naturally they’ll be allies in Puducherry too. It’s expected that seat sharing for Puducherry will take place in couple of days.

However, rivalry issues within Puducherry Congress continue. A senior leader said the party members have no idea about the seat sharing talks.

“Whether it’s about the number of seats, the constituencies we are going to contest, date of the release of candidates list, etc, – everything will be decided only by the party’s top leadership. We don’t have a say in the process,” he said.

(With inputs from Vinoth kumar N)