Only after more rounds of talks can seat sharing be finalized given the stiff positions the two parties have taken

The DMK and Congress on Friday decided to continue seat sharing talks between the two parties after the first round of exploratory meeting was held at Karunanidhi’s residence on Friday afternoon. Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told media persons after his meeting with the DMK patriarch and his senior leaders that the Congress has indicated as to how many numbers it wants to contest.

We have given time to the DMK to think about it and may be during the next meeting seat sharing agreement could be worked out, Azad said adding that today’s meeting was devoted to understanding the electoral strategy of the DMK Congress combine.

“We wanted to have a meeting with the DMK leadership about the elections and also about election strategy. This was the main purpose of our meeting, as to how to go about the elections, who are the oth4er political parties, small or big, who will be part of our combination. We discussed that. One or two groups have already joined and the DMK leadership is expecting one or two more groups to be joining.” The senior Congress leader told media persons after the DMK Congress meeting that lasted over an hour.

DMK leaders MK Stalin and Kanimozhi were also present at the meeting.

“As far as seat sharing is concerned, we just raised the issue. We have not firmed up the numbers. We have given some time to the DMK also, and then we will also discuss among ourselves with Congress leadership. May be the second time we will be able to firm up the numbers,” the senior Congress leader said.

Azad, who called on Karunanidhi along with senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik, spent over an hour with the DMK patriarch and his senior leaders, MK Stalin, Kanimozhi and other office bearers, said that the two parties had discussed election strategy and how to fight the polls jointly.

The senior Congress leader skirted questions that tried to pin him down on number of seats that his own party was wanting to fight this time around. “The next time, we would like to tell the DMK leadership that we should also finalize the number of seats we would contest and also as to how many seats the others would contest.”

“This is not the final meeting,” Azad said . Commenting on the meeting, Stalin said Azad expressed his party’s views and Kalaignar also outlined his views and the meeting was very cordial. The DMK treasurer refused to be drawn into any conversation on the other parties that are expected to join the alliance as indicated by Azad. “We are not having talks with anyone regarding joining and I don’t know why he (Azad) said so.”

Earlier in the morning, Azad arrived in Chennai and went straight to the residence of Karunanidhi at Gopalapuram.

The two parties had fought the 2011 general elections together but shortly afterwards, the DMK pulled out of the UPA government and snapped its alliance with the Congress, citing the Srilanka issue as the main reason.

In the 2014 general elections both parties fought the polls separately and both drew a blank. The Congress faced the ignominy of losing deposits in all but one of the 39 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Tamil Nadu.

Both parties had realized the necessity to build an alliance to take on a resurgent Jayalalithaa and came together after a gap of five years, to fight the 2016 general elections together in an alliance.

The seat sharing discussions are expected to heated as well as protracted as the two sides are for the present maintaining stiff positions. While the Congress wants to contest at least the same number of 63 seats it contested last time in 2011, the DMK is unwilling to allot the Congress more than 30 seats.

A senior DMK leader said, “the Congress is now considerably weakened after its leader GK Vasan broke away and it should not insist on large number of seats and lose them. The alliance would suffer if Congress insisted on high numbers.”

Meanwhile the DMK continues its hunt for smaller regional parties to add up vote shares that will give it a fighting chance in what promises to be a multi-cornered contests, that at present seem to present Jayalalithaa with an advantage.