DMK-Congress alliance: Seat identification hits roadblock

New Delhi, Mar 11: It seems that there is no end to impasse in the seat-sharing deals between allies Congress and the DMK. If the initial threat of a complete collapse of the alliance was not enough, there is now a headache for both party's top brass regarding the identification of constituencies.

Despite two rounds of talks, both the two parties have not been able to agree on identifying the constituencies to contest in the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly elections. And to make matters worse, there is also the issue of delimitation of constituencies which forces the parties to squeeze in their best leaders.

K V Thangkabalu, President of the Tamil Nadu state Congress unit, informed that another round of the constituency-identification meeting will be on Friday, Mar 11.

P Chidambaram, G K Vasan, Jayanthi Natarajan and K Jayakumar represented the Congress while M K Alagiri and Dayanidhi Maran and other senior party leaders presented DMK at the negotiations held in New Delhi.

The New Indian Express has cited anonymous sources as saying that the talks heat a plateau on the question seven of the 48 constituencies contested by the Congress in 2006, which have now been merged with adjoining constituencies after delimitation. Congress sought for the newly-formed constituencies, but the DMK having agreed to allocate most of the seats contested by Congress in 2006, wasn't too willing to accede to it.

OneIndia News