Confirming that the seat sharing deal has been sealed, Congress leaders KS Alagiri and Dinesh Gundu Rao, on Sunday, said they’ve signed the agreement with DMK. As TNM had reported, Congress will contest from 25 Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat, the leaders told the media. Alagiri said the Congress had asked for a Rajya Sabha seat as well, but DMK has sought time to confirm the same.
"Rahul Gandhi told us that this Assembly election is a battle of ideologies and principles and we need to win," said Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president, KS Alagiri, justifying the alliance. He also said that Congress will not seek to share in power. “We are the only alternative to BJP. As a national party, we may even field 234 candidates in the future,” he further added.
The decision came after a late night meeting at DMK chief MK Stalin’s residence. Congress leaders KS Alagiri, Dinesh Gundu Rao, and KR Ramasamy visited the DMK chief’s residence after the meetings held through Sunday were unfruitful. Sources told TNM that Rahul Gandhi had a telephonic conversation with Stalin pushing for the number of seats to 25, from the 20 seats DMK had been offering. The DMK had their political consultant Prashant Kishor come down to Chennai as well.
Speaking to reporters after the signing of the agreement, Dinesh Gundu Rao said, “After all our discussions we have come to a conclusion(seat sharing agreement). Once we sign the agreement we should be satisfied. We are now on the battlefield. BJP intends to kill all opposition parties including DMK. This is a secular front to send a message that we will stop this fascist force, and across the country like-minded parties should come together.”
With many Congress leaders complaining of humiliation by the DMK, speculations of the national party walking out of the alliance were doing rounds. In the past week, several speculated a possible alliance of the Congress with Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam. Discussions of Congress fighting the elections solo as well was seen in Congress meetings, according to sources, but with less than a month to go, many senior leaders believed that the party had no time to prepare to fight in all 234 seats.
The stalemate between the two parties had been a cause of concern for the Congress leadership, which had asked the state unit to seal the deal amicably sooner rather than later. Senior leader Veerappa Moily, deputed to Tamil Nadu to oversee election management in the state, had told reporters on Friday, "The talks are on and it may be finalised by today or tomorrow."
The Congress in Tamil Nadu faced a tough task in bargaining for seats, with the DMK taking a hard stand. The Congress wanted to contest in at least 41 seats, the same as the previous election. DMK sources had told TNM earlier that they had begun with an offer of just 12 seats, had increased it to 18 on Wednesday, and 20 on Thursday.
However, Congress leaders found the low number of seats being offered unacceptable and pointed out that the party was putting its entire strength into campaigning. The visit of former party president Rahul Gandhi was also seemingly part of a strategy to pressurise the DMK to yield more seats. The Congress had called its state leaders to deliberate on the issue in Chennai.
The DMK meanwhile, said that it was even willing to go ahead and contest the elections without an alliance with the Congress, as it was confident of a victory.
A source close to MK Stalin had told TNM earlier, that Congress was welcome to the alliance but they, "needed to understand the present condition and accept the offer and work towards the DMK alliance victory."
The polling to the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly will be held in a single phase on April 6. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.