Congress Accepts 28 Assembly Seats, 1 Rajya Sabha Berth From DMK Ahead Of Tamil Nadu Polls
· Free Press Journal
Chennai: Weeks of simmering tensions and ugly posturing between old allies DMK and Congress ended on Wednesday night with the Congress accepting the DMK’s offer of 28 Assembly seats and one Rajya Sabha berth for the upcoming elections in Tamil Nadu.
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DMK leader and Chief Minister M K Stalin and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K Selvaperunthagai signed the formal agreement at the former’s party headquarters, Anna Arivalayam in Chennai. Girish Chodankar, the AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu, who had earlier irked the DMK leadership by publicly rejecting its initial offer of 25 seats, looked on as the two leaders signed the agreement.
The Congress had begun the negotiations last year giving a wish list of 70 seats and demanding a share in power. The DMK leaders had initially laughed it off and postponed the talks citing the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and other party activities. The national party, however, constantly pin pricked the DMK through a couple of its functionaries Manickam Tagore (MP) and Praveen Chakravarthy (a data analyst), by publicly taking potshots at the DMK’s position.
Stalin, however, made it clear that the concept of power sharing is anathema to Tamil Nadu and the electorate will not accept it. The Congress, however, continued to taunt the DMK with some of its leaders openly praising actor-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), notwithstanding the fact that the latter had dubbed the DMK an “evil force”.
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What prompted the Congress to play hard ball was that Vijay was willing to offer a share in power to any party that was willing to align with it.
Finally, as things appeared to get out of hand, senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram agreed to play emissary using his personal rapport with Stalin. On Tuesday, with the approval of AICC leadership, he met Stalin when the latter agreed to raise the offer to 27 seats along with one Rajya Sabha seat.
On Wednesday evening, that number was increased by one more Assembly seat and the two sides expressed happiness. The next round of tensions could emerge when the constituencies are finalised.