The Indian Union Muslim League has signed a memorandum with the DMK to contest in three seats for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections in 2021. Confirming the pact, National President of IUML Kader Mohideen said that IUML is also contesting in Kerala, West Bengal and Assam. The party will contest under the ladder symbol.
Speaking to the media following a meeting with DMK chief Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, Kader Mohideen said,” Today, the IUML delegation with six members met Stalin. Even yesterday (Sunday), we held a discussion with the election coordinators of DMK. So, during the discussion we requested DMK to give us five seats.”
“Every year, DMK will always sign the first deal with us and following the same tradition, DMK chief Stalin has signed the memorandum. We have signed the pact for three seats,” he said.
Kader Mohideen also said that the DMK chief explained the political scenario prevailing in the country as the reason for allocating lesser seats than their demand. Mohideen said, “Due to the political scenario, DMK has to contest more seats for winning a majority, and many new parties have joined us. So considering these, Stalin said that DMK cannot give us five seats and we accepted the offer.”
To the question on the symbol for IUML, Mohideen said, “IUML is contesting in 30 seats in Kerala and we are going to contest in West Bengal and Assam. So we are going to contest in our independent symbol — the Ladder.”
However, IUML is yet to provide a list of constituencies that they would like to contest in. “We have not given the list of our constituencies that we want to contest. So we will give the list later and will contest in the constituencies given to them. We have a list of 25 probable constituencies that we have contested till now,” he said.
On Monday, DMK alloted two seats to Manithaneya Makkal Katchi.
DMK is currently holding talks with other alliance partners, including Congress, VCK and CPM and UPA, and is expected to seal the deal within the next two days.