Wary of Cong leaders jumping fence, DMK reduces its seats
After rounds of tough bargaining for seat-sharing, the DMK has provided only 25 seats to the Congress, much lower than 41 it contested in the 2016 Assembly elections.
image for illustrative purpose
Chennai: After rounds of tough bargaining for seat-sharing, the DMK has provided only 25 seats to the Congress, much lower than 41 it contested in the 2016 Assembly elections.
A senior leader of the DMK who does not want to be named told IANS, "Congress does not have any grassroots strength in most of the constituencies and even the 25 we have given is the DMK's benevolence". He added, "Another major factor which led to the reduction in the number of seats to the Congress party is the possibility of the Congressmen switching sides in a situation of a close finish which we have seen in neighbouring Puducherry and so we don't want that to happen here".
DMK supremo, MK Stalin, according to party office bearers was reluctant to provide more than 18 seats to the Congress party and had to finally come in line following intervention from both Rahul Gandhi and Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi. However, K.S. Alagiri, Tamil Nadu State Congress president while speaking to IANS said, "These are all media speculations. Of course the negotiations was not pleasant as it is in almost all the seat negotiations but DMK has provided a decent number of seats to the Congress and we are happy."
