A Rush To Wrap Up Alliances By Month-end

Chennai: Both the leading coalitions in the State, the one led by the DMK and the other one by the AIADMK-BJP, are in rush to wrap up the alliances for the coming Assembly elections with March 1 emerging as the de facto deadline for both of them for different reasons and both groups racing against time even as the third force, the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) is reportedly finalizing candidates without waiting for allies.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to address a meeting in Madurai on March 1, the BJP and AIADMK leaders are keen on wrapping it all up before that while the DMK wants to speed up the process ahead of Chief Minister M K Stalin’s birthday, falling on March 1, while the countdown for the elections itself has already started with the Election Commission of India (ECI) set to finalise the poll date.

In the BJP-AIADMK camp, though there is no more confusion on who will be part of the coalition, discussions on the number of seats to be allotted to each of the partners like the PMK group led by Anbumani Ramadoss and others are still on.

As far as the DMK-led Secular Democratic Front is concerned, the main thorn in the flesh is the Congress, whose recalcitrance to come around and settle for a number or quit is causing headaches to the DMK leaders involved in the alliance talks. While it is learnt that the DMK has completely ruled out share in power, a main demand of the Congress, too much of haggling was on for the seats.

While the DMK is not prepared to allocate not more than 25 to 28 seats, Congress leaders, claiming that they had grown in the State since the last elections, are demanding a minimum of one seat per Lok Sahha constituency which works out to 39, a number that is totally unacceptable to the DMK.

The recent entry of the DMDK into the alliance and reported promise for a Rajya Sabha seat by the DMK has ruffled feathers in the VCK, where some leaders were apparently not happy about the seats that they might get despite being part of the coalition for such a long period.

The team of leaders of the Congress that came to Chennai has returned to Delhi to report to the high command the developments and seek further advice on making the next move. In the rival camp, too, the smaller parties are unable to take a final decision on seats.

In the TVK, however, the process of identifying a winnable seat for party president Vijay is on. Other top leaders, too, want to contest from seats that they could win. So, as of now everything is in a flux with only sporadic campaigning happening in the State.