Chidambaram Flies to Chennai, Meets Stalin — and DMK Raises Its Alliance Offer to Congress
DMK raised its seat offer to Congress after Chidambaram met Stalin, with fresh talks scheduled for Wednesday.
Amid a deadlock over seat-sharing talks, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has reportedly offered 29 Assembly seats and two Rajya Sabha berths to its ally, the Indian National Congress, following a meeting between senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin on Tuesday. DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi was also present at the discussions.
Sources indicated that while the DMK leadership was unwilling to meet the Congress’s demand for 34 Assembly seats, it expressed readiness to allocate up to 29 seats along with two Rajya Sabha positions. According to party insiders, one Rajya Sabha seat would be offered in the forthcoming biennial election, while the second could be considered in 2028. The DMK is also understood to prefer that the Upper House nomination go to a Tamil Nadu Congress leader.
A Congress functionary confirmed the offer and said the party was “working out the numbers” before seeking approval from the central leadership. Meanwhile, the DMK’s seat-sharing committee has invited the Congress for a second round of talks on Wednesday in an effort to finalise the arrangement.
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Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K. Selvaperunthagai described the meeting with Stalin as a “courtesy call", asserting that the alliance between the two parties remains firm and that seat-sharing discussions would be concluded soon. He added that no formal deadline had been set by the DMK.
The decision to send Chidambaram for talks reportedly followed consultations among senior Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjuna Kharge and K. C. Venugopal, after earlier negotiations failed to produce a breakthrough. Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu are said to have conveyed to the high command their preference to continue the alliance with the DMK.
Earlier discussions had reportedly centred on an offer of 25 to 28 seats and one Rajya Sabha berth, while some Congress leaders were said to have pushed for a higher allocation. Speaking in Pudukkottai, DMK leader and minister for natural resources S. Regupathy maintained that the Congress’s prospects in the Assembly were tied to the DMK-led alliance, underscoring the political significance of the ongoing negotiations.
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