Chennai: CPI (M) has given up its sitting Harur Assembly seat in Dharmapuri to its ally VCK following protests by the local VCK cadres, who threatened to boycott the polls if the seat was not allotted to their party.
Marxist party legislator P. Dillibabu has been representing Harur in the Assembly for two consecutive terms since 2006. “During the seat identification talks, it was decided that sitting seats would be retained by the parties. So we did not seek the Harur seat that was represented by CPI (M). But a section of our cadres in Harur have been staging peaceful protests for the past two days seeking allotment of the seat to them,” said VCK president Thol. Thirumavalavan.
The protesting VCK cadres held talks with CPI (M) Dharmapuri district leaders, he said. After hearing their views, CPI (M) leaders discussed the issue in their state committee and decided to give up the seat to VCK. "In return, the CPI (M) has demanded Thiru V. Ka Nagar assembly seat in Chennai. So we decided to swap the seats,” Mr Thirumavalavan said.
VCK and DMDK had also exchanged Kallakurichi and Tindivanam seats.
“We had sought Kallakurichi seat during our negotiations but was not allotted to us. Now we had swapped Tindivanam assembly seat for Kallakurichi,” he said.
He ruled out any more changes in the seats allotted to the alliance parties. DMDK and MDMK also swapped a seat with DMDK to contest from Manargudi while MDMK will contest for the Muthukulathor seat.
