Lok Sabha elections 2024: DMK, Congress to hold seat-sharing talks on January 28

Chennai: Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) will on January 28 officially kick-off its preparations for Lok Sabha polls by holding seat-sharing negotiations with its ally Congress, which is likely to be represented by a high-powered team dispatched by the High Command along with leaders from the state unit. 

Sources told DH that the Congress’ team will comprise former Chief Ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, Mukul Wasnik, and Ajoy Kumar besides Tamil Nadu Congress chief K S Alagiri, and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader K Selva Perunthagai. 

The team will meet the seat-sharing panel constituted by the DMK last week, the sources said. “The meeting will set the tone for the negotiations, and I'm sure there'll be more such meetings before we decide on the number of seats for the Congress,” a senior TNCC leader told DH.

The DMK panel consists of Parliamentary Party leader T R Baalu, former Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy, who was disqualified as an MLA after he was convicted in a corruption case by the Madras High Court, ministers K N Nehru, I Periyasamy, and M R K Panneerselvam and MPs, A Raja, and Tiruchi Siva.

The Congress is expecting the DMK to stick to the 2019 seat-sharing formula under which the party got nine seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone Lok Sabha seat in Puducherry and will press for the same during the talks on Sunday. 

“We settled for 25 seats in the Assembly elections in 2021 as the DMK said it was state elections and they should be allowed to contest in a majority of the seats. Since this is a national election, we just hope that the DMK allots 10 seats like in 2019 though change of a few constituencies is inevitable,” another Congress leader said. 

After the first round of talks with the Congress, the DMK will invite CPI(M), CPI, VCK, and MDMK for negotiations on seat-sharing as it hopes to complete the task and begin the campaign early.

“We don’t have much time and that's why the committees were announced last week and the manifesto panel has already met once. We hope to finish the negotiations soon,” a DMK leader said.

Congress and DMK have been in an alliance since 2004, except between March 2013 and February 2016, and have fought every election sans the 2014 Lok Sabha polls together. The alliance has won in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2019, and 2021, while losing in 2011 and 2016 Assembly polls.