The DMK-Congress combine announced on Monday that the Congress will contest 41 seats in the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls after Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad met DMK president M. Karunanidhi in his Gopalapuram residence.
He had previously met party vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday. Sources told The Hindu that Mr. Azad played a pivotal role in convincing the Congress national leadership to settle the talks quickly.
Earlier, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) had communicated to the DMK that close to 40 seats would be a “great bargain”. The DMK also felt time was running out.
On March 25, Azad and Mukul Wasnik along with TNCC had met DMK chief M Karunanidhi and other party leaders to discuss poll strategy.
The parties haggled over seats, and as reported The New Indian Express, Congress had asked for 63 seats but DMK was only willing to offer about 25 to 30 seats in the coming elections because of the split in Congress.
DMK has already allocated five seats each to IUML and MMK, the other parties in the alliance.
Congress won only five out of the 63 seats in 2011 elections and its polling percentage in 2014 parliamentary elections was just above four percent.
However, Congress and DMK both require each other for the elections as DMK has only Congress as the major alliance party and Congress will be requiring DMK for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.