DPA to finalise constituencies by Mar 17

Chennai, Mar 13 (UNI) The DMK, heading the Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA), is expected to finalise the process of identifying constituencies for its allies by March 17.

Party sources told UNI here the identification of constituencies among the DPA partners will be completed either by March 16 or 17.

After signing seat sharing agreements, all parties, except the Congress, had submitted a fresh list of constituencies which they wished to contest in the May 8 elections to the State Assembly.

The Congress was expected to submit the list on March 15 and once it was received, the DMK would identify and finalise the list of constituencies to be contested by each party in the DPA.

For the purpose of completing the exercise, the DMK had postponed the ongoing interview of its candidates scheduled between March 14 and 20.

The interview process would commence again after the process of finalising the list of constituencies was completed.

Under the seat sharing agreement, the DMK would contest 129 seats. It alloted 48 seats to Congress, 31 to Pattali Makkal Katchi, 13 to CPI(M), ten to CPI and three to Indian Union Muslim League.

The number of parties in the DPA had come down from seven to six after the MDMK led by Mr Vaiko parted ways with it and inked a pact with the ruling AIADMK ahead of the polls.

UNI GV-WS LR HT1835