CHENNAI: It took a call from Congress president Sonia Gandhi to DMK president M K Stalin on Saturday night to bring the meandering seat-sharing talks between the two sides to a logical end.
DMK and Congress on Sunday signed a seat-sharing agreement for contesting the Tamil Nadu assembly election together. DMK has allotted 25 assembly seats for Congress in the alliance, besides the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat that fell vacant after H Vasanthakumar was infected with Covid-19 and died in August last year.
Sonia Gandhi reached out to Stalin and stressed the need to sustain this secular alliance in the wake of the BJP onslaught, a senior AICC leader based in Delhi told TOI. Besides the assembly seats, the talks centred around Congress’s request for two Rajya Sabha seats, with one directly from DMK and another based on the outcome of the assembly election. “The DMK had assured to consider the request at the right time. We do not put these in black and white and it works on mutual trust,” said the AICC leader.
Following the conversation, Stalin invited TNCC president K S Alagiri and AICC general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu Dinesh Gundu Rao to his residence late Monday evening. DMK women’s wing secretary Kanimozhi too was present. Significantly, it was the first such meeting that Stalin held at his residence, as DMK held all its negotiations at its party office.
On Sunday morning, Stalin and Alagiri formally signed the seat-sharing agreement at Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters. Dinesh Gundu Rao, Congress legislature party leader K R Ramasamy and Kanimozhi were present.
The development brings to an end the protracted negotiations that DMK had with Congress. The first round of talks began on February 25, followed by the second round last Tuesday, amid tears, angst and recriminations. Last Friday, at an internal meeting of the TNCC, Alagiri broke down while narrating to party colleagues how the negotiating team was “treated” by DMK leaders.
“This election is more about the need to strengthen the secular plank rather than the number of seats. To prevent the spread of the BJP, which is more dangerous than the coronavirus, all secular parties had to join hands with the single aim of defeating the BJP and its allies,” Alagiri told reporters after signing the deal.
He recalled that in his recent campaign in Tamil Nadu, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi described the assembly election as an ideological war, more than a mere change in regime. “This secular front will win big in this election, ” Dinesh Gundu Rao said.