Congress-DMK remain together in Tamil Nadu
After days of haggling, Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on Tuesday decided to stay together in the Tamil Nadu elections in April as the two parties arrived at a seat-sharing agreement from the point of a break-up.
Congress is now likely to contest in 63 seats after DMK agreed to the figure following a hard bargaining and a near split in the alliance.
Apparently, it is Congress which prevailed over DMK in conceding the seats they wanted.
The Tamil Nadu assembly has 235 members.
While 61 seats were agreed to be surrendered by the DMK, its parters- PMK and IUML- will part with two seats (one each) for Congress, reports said.
The two parties ended their stalemate over the issue after a meeting between Dayanidhi Maran, Pranab Mukherjee and Gulam Nabi Azad.
“It is a winning alliance,” said Congress leader and central minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Earlier, a meeting on late Monday night between Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and DMK ministers Dayanidhi Maran and MK Alagiri failed to reach a solution, dragging the stalemate between the two parties on to Tuesday.
Union Finance Minister and senior Congress party leader Pranab Mukherjee had urged the DMK to rethink its decision of breaking off their alliance over seat sharing differences.
Congress at the centre was left egg-faced over the corruption issue because of DMK leader A Raja, who had to resign as the telecom minister and face a CBI probe on the 2G scam issue.
Mukherjee on Monday spoke twice to DMK supremo M Karunanidhi.
The DMK had on Saturday night decided of pulling out its ministers from the Union Cabinet following differences with the Congress over seat sharing in Tamil Nadu elections.
The DMK, the third largest ally in the United progressive Alliance (UPA) after the Congress and Trinamool Congress, has six members in the Union Cabinet.
The strife over seat sharing arrangement for the coming Tamil Nadu Assembly election had virtually brought down the seven-year-old alliance between Congress and DMK on Saturday.