CHENNAI: Amid a deadlock in seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the DMK, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K Selvaperunthagai on Tuesday met Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin at his residence.
CM Stalin was accompanied by DMK deputy general secretary and MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi.
After the meeting, Chidambaram and Selvaperunthagai avoided interacting with the media gathered at the Chief Minister’s residence, indicating that there was no breakthrough in the discussions.
Earlier in the day, the Congress high command had deputed former finance minister and senior leader Chidambaram to hold talks with the DMK leadership as a last resort to finalise the alliance deal.
The decision to send Chidambaram was taken following a coordination meeting between Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjuna Kharge and KC Venugopal.
The meeting was necessitated as both parties failed to arrive at an agreeable number of seats for the Congress to contest in the upcoming Assembly election as part of the Secular Progressive Alliance.
On Sunday, members of the Congress’ seat-sharing committee conveyed to the party high command that the DMK was firm on allocating not more than 25 seats and one Rajya Sabha seat, with scope to increase the number only nominally to between 25 and 28 after consultation with the Chief Minister.
AICC Tamil Nadu in-charge Girish Chodankar, who had given a constituency wishlist of 42 to 45 seats to the DMK, was firm on not settling for anything less than 34 seats.
Subsequently, on Sunday night, the Congress high command held talks with its MLAs in Tamil Nadu on their views regarding the alliance. They were positive about continuing the alliance with the DMK but insisted on contesting more seats.