The AIADMK is expected to finalise its seat sharing with its allies, including the BJP on Monday evening. Sources told TNM that the BJP has sought to contest in 25-30 seats in the Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections. However, the AIADMK is likely to settle on giving the national party 20 seats or a little less, said a source. This comes following late night talks between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam on Sunday.
“The BJP does have a list of 60 constituencies in Tamil Nadu. However, this list was not discussed during Amit Shah’s meeting with the Chief Minister and Deputy CM,” said the source. Sources told TNM that the BJP is unlikely to drive a hard bargain despite getting less than what it has demanded. “Edappadi Palaniswami had given the BJP only five seats (out of 39) during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections despite not being as strong as he is now. Now that EPS has consolidated power, why would he give more seats to the BJP?”
The AIADMK is also expected to finalise seats for other allies as well. Vijayakant’s DMDK is expected to get around 20 seats, while GK Vaasan’s Tamil Maanila Congress and other allies will get three to four seats. This will leave the AIADMK with around 170 seats.
The PMK will be the second largest party in the alliance with 23 seats already being allotted on Saturday by the AIADMK. The party had settled on 23 seats after the AIADMK had passed a bill providing 10.5% internal reservation to Vanniyars on Friday.
“As far as this election is concerned, our demand was reservation for Vanniyars. The government has fulfilled that. Hence, we have willingly reduced the number of seats that we will contest in the elections. Our strength is not going to diminish. Our alliance will win in this election and Edappadi Palaniswami will become the Chief Minister again," said PMK’s Anbumani Ramadoss on Saturday.
Tamil Nadu will go to polls on April 6, while the counting of votes will take place on May 2.