Karunanidhi campaign programme to be announced in April

Chennai, Mar 23 (UNI) Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) President M Karunanidhi today said his campaign programme for the May 8 Assembly elections would be announced in the first week of April.

In a statement here, he said after completing the interviews of aspiring candidates, he was looking forward for his personal interviews' with party cadre and people in the run up to the polls.

With the interviews for candidate selection for the 129 seats to be contested by the DMK all set to be successfuly completed, Mr Karunanidhi said he was hopeful that his 'personal interview' with the people would also be a great success.

He said the party had identified constituencies to be contested by its allies - Congress (48), CPI(M) (13), CPI (10) and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) (three). It would be finalising an agreement with the Pattali Makkal Katchi in a day or two.

Meanwhile, the committees formed by the DMK for holding talks with allies, selecting candidates and preparing party manifesto were busy with their work and they would be finishing by this weekend.

He said the DMK had been magnanimous in sharing seats and its sacrifice was clear, given the number of seats allotted to allies.

The DMK leader said partymen who had sought tickets to contest from a particular constituency, but could not get a ticket because that constituency had been allotted to allies, should not lose heart.

''On the other hand, they should console themeselves that the seats had gone only to allies and wholeheartedly work for the DPA's victory, he said.

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