Even as seat-sharing talks among major National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners in the State began, rumblings among allies are growing and threatening to upset the alliance.
While the entire focus has been on the moves of the DMDK and the PMK on the seat-sharing issue, the MDMK, which has extended its support to the BJP much earlier, has been maintaining a studied silence during the recent period.
Party sources said that the MDMK leadership had given a wish list of 12 seats to the BJP leaders and had made it clear that the party should be given an ‘honourable number of seats’ and that just because it is not pestering the BJP with ‘unreasonable demands, the MDMK should not be taken for granted.’
Meanwhile, the DMDK leader L K Sudheesh and party MLA V C Chandrakumar, accompanied by other leaders, visited the State BJP headquarters on Saturday for the second round of talks.
Leaders of both parties expressed confidence that the exercise would be completed within a day or two. Sudheesh later told media representatives that the BJP and its allies would register a massive win in the Lok Sabha elections and within a day or two, the party chief Vijayakant would announce the seat-sharing details.
Sources said that the parties in the BJP-led alliance have come to a broad understanding on the number of seats for each party and identification of constituencies would be completed soon.
The distribution of seats among the BJP allies could be: DMDK-14, BJP-9, PMK-9, MDMK-5, and one seat each for IJK, Kongu Makkal Desiya Katchi and New Justice Party.