Congress seat-sharing committee meets Stalin

The five-member seat-sharing committee of the Congress held its first formal meeting with DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and other party leaders at Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters, in Chennai on Wednesday.

The national party’s delegation included TNCC president K. Selvaperunthagai, AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry Girish Chodankar, AICC secretaries Nivedith Alva and Suraj Hegde, and Congress Legislature Party leader S. Rajeshkumar.

Mr. Selvaperunthagai said it was a preliminary meeting, and “no numbers were spoken about”. He added that the meeting had ended speculation on whether the ties between the Congress and the DMK would continue. The INDIA bloc remained strong, he said.

To a question over whether the Congress will seek to contest in considerably higher number of seats like it did in the 2016 Assembly elections, Mr. Selvaperunthagai said, “Please wait and then see.”

Some second lined leaders in the TNCC believe the party might find it difficult to convince the DMK to part with more seats with their political presence continuing to decline in Tamil Nadu.

“When former TNCC president K.S. Alagiri accepted 25 seats in 2021 as part of the alliance, Rahul Gandhi was not happy at all. So, definitely, we might not accept 25 seats, but demanding the number we got in 2016 might not be possible. We may have to settle for a little more than 25 seats,” said a senior leader.

He claimed, “The DMK often plays one ally against the other. They would say that giving us more seats would result in the VCK seeking more seats because….to be fair…VCK is substantially stronger presence than the Congress at this point of time.”

A senior leader from the VCK, also echoed similar sentiments, “Whenever VCK demands more seats, we are often told that giving us more seats would result in CPI and CPI(M) seeking more seats. Let’s see how it plays out.”