DMK-Congress seat-sharing talks today
Tamil Nadu: Seat-sharing talks between the DMK and Congress will be held on Saturday at Anna Arivalayam in Chennai.
Along with a delegation led by DMK Constituency Sharing Committee Chairman T.R. Baalu, a delegation led by Congress Constituency Sharing Committee Chairman Girish Chodankar, including All India Secretaries Suraj Hegde and Nivedith Alva, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President K. Selvapperundhagai, and Congress Legislative Assembly President S. Rajesh Kumar, are participating in the talks. Talks between the DMK and Congress failed to take place due to the Congress’s power-sharing and other conditions. Meanwhile, Congress dropped the idea of power-sharing last week after Chief Minister M.K. Stalin spoke to Sonia Gandhi and Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge over the phone. Following this, All India Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal met and held talks with Chief Minister Stalin on the 22nd.
However, DMK-Congress talks suffered another setback when news spread that Girish Chodankar was in alliance talks with Thaveka.
Congress has directed the All India Congress Committee to hold talks with the DMK and finalize seat-sharing. Accordingly, seat-sharing talks between the DMK and Congress will take place on Saturday. It is being said that Congress may be allocated 25 to 28 seats and one Rajya Sabha seat. Similarly, talks with VIPs will also take place on Saturday. Peaceful talks with the Left: Talks were held with the Marxist and Communist Parties of India on Friday. Following this, Marxist State Secretary P. Shanmugam stated that the talks were peaceful. The Marxist Communists have demanded more seats. They have stated that they will communicate their decision after speaking with the Chief Minister. No seat list has been provided. He stated that they will provide the list after the counting is complete.
Communist Party of India State Secretary M. Veerapandian said that discussions regarding the number of seats are still ongoing. He added that there has been no discussion about reducing seats. Similar discussions were held with the CPI(M) group on Friday.
