DMK's Rising Sun to contest in 187 out of 234 Tamil Nadu constituencies

The DMK concluded its seat-sharing negotiations with allies on Tuesday, signing a pact with the KMDK.

Hoardings featuring picture of DMK president MK Stalin along with the rising sun symbol near a shop in Chennai. (Photo| EPS/ Debadatta Mallick)

CHENNAI: Candidates will be contesting on the DMK's 'Rising Sun' symbol in 187 out of 234 constituencies in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections next month.

The opposition party, having finalised seat-sharing pacts with all its allies, will field its own candidates in 174 seats while 13 candidates from its alliance partners, including six from MDMK and three from Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi, will contest under its symbol.
 
The DMK concluded its seat-sharing negotiations with allies on Tuesday, signing a pact with the KMDK. The party and its alliance partners are now engaged in discussions on identifying the constituencies from which they will contest. Having scheduled the release of its candidate list for Wednesday, the party must complete the identification exercise by then. So far, it has allocated the Kadayanallur assembly constituency to IUML, which won from the segment as part of the DMK alliance in the 2016 Assembly election.

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The party’s alliance talks with Congress in the Union Territory of Puducherry are still underway. A delegation from the Puducherry Congress unit, led by former Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, visited DMK's headquarters of Anna Arivalayam on Tuesday and met with DMK leaders. Narayanasamy told reporters that they had conveyed their demands to the DMK leadership and an agreement would be reached at the earliest as the talks had gone smoothly.
 
Meanwhile, DMK president MK Stalin condemned Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami for alleging that the opposition party had copied the AIADMK’s idea. Stalin said the party's announcement of a monthly honorarium of Rs 1,000 for each woman head of a family was welcomed widely and so Palaniswami was claiming that DMK had copied AIADMK's idea. Former PMK MLA Ganesan joined DMK on Tuesday in the presence of MK Stalin.
 
Seat sharing in DMK alliance:
 
DMK: 174
 
Congress: 25
 
MDMK, VCK, CPI, CPM: 6 each
 
IUML: 3
 
KMDK: 3
 
MMK: 2
 
Others: 3