Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK and the Congress have come to an agreement on sharing seats for the April 13 Assembly polls, with the Congress being offered 60 seats. The deal is to be signed shortly, a DMK official said Thursday night. The seat sharing deal is likely to be signed Friday or Saturday, a top DMK leader said on condition of
anonymity. The DMK has offered Congress 60 seats in a house of 234. “The Congress is learnt to be agreeable to the deal,” the party source said. On Wednesday night, a two-hour meeting on the issue had ended inconclusively and it was announced that the two parties would meet again Thursday. However, the meeting got cancelled as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress general secretary and in-charge of party’s Tamil Nadu affairs, who led the party’s negotiating team, left for Delhi along with state chief K.V. Thangkabalu. Chief minister M. Karunanidhi had told reporters Wednesday night that the talks would resume Thursday.
The DMK has arrived at six seat sharing deals, including with the Congress.
The DMK has announced the allotment of seven seats to the KMK. The DMK had earlier signed agreements with the MMK, VCK, PMK and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), allotting them one, 10, 31 and three seats respectively. Single-phase polls will be held April 13 in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and votes will be counted May 13.
—IANS