PUDUCHERRY: With the second round of seat-sharing talks between the Congress and DMK in Puducherry remaining inconclusive, the final decision is set to be taken in Chennai by senior leaders of the two parties.
Briefing newspersons after the meeting, former Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said both parties exchanged the views of their leaders on the number of seats each should contest. AICC general secretary Dinesh Gundu Rao will be coming to Chennai on Monday evening to hold talks with DMK President M K Stalin to finalize the number of seats for each party, he said.
Narayanasamy said that steps would be taken to finalize the number of seats by tonight or by tomorrow. Separate talks with other constituents of the Secular Democratic Alliance (SDA) would be held to decide the number of seats to be allotted to them, he added.
However, he parried a question regarding who would lead the alliance in Puducherry. Until now, the Congress has been leading the alliance with Dravidian parties in the Union territory. In the 2016 elections, the Congress contested in 21 out of 30 assembly constituencies, while the DMK contested in nine. The Congress won 15 seats, while the DMK got two and the alliance came to power with a combined strength of 18 including an independent.
Now, with the exodus of prominent Congress leaders including two ministers to the BJP and NR Congress, the party has to look for winnable candidates in at least nine constituencies (seven of which they won in 2016 and two nurtured well by prospective candidates who quit).
Asked about the exodus of party office bearers including working president A K D Arumugham from the Congress, Narayanasamy said some are joining the BJP due to threats and others are joining the N R Congress out of compulsion.
Besides Narayanasamy, PCC president A V Subramanian, Lok Sabha member V Vaithilingam and former minister M Kandasamy took part in the seat sharing talks on the Congress side, while party conveners S P Sivakumar and R Siva represented the DMK.