A week after clinching the seat sharing deal for the upcoming assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, after prolonged negotiations and hectic parleys, the Congress and the DMK have begun their seat sharing talks in the neighbouring Puducherry. But=like in Tamil Nadu, several rounds of talks and exchanging barbs are at play even in the union territory.
While Congress claims that it is the larger partner in Puducherry and it will decide the number of seats to be allotted to the DMK, the latter seems to be in a confrontation mode. The Congress wants to contest in 20 assembly segments out of the 30 constituencies and share the remaining 10 among the DMK, VCK and the Left parties in the alliance. The Congress, which contested in 15 assembly segments in the 2021 elections, wants to contest in five more constituencies in order to make sure that it gets a majority in the Puducherry assembly. But the DMK, which contested in 13 seats, too wants to increase its number in Puducherry this time. The VCK and the CPI contested in one seat each in the 2021 assembly polls. The DMK, which was looking for 18 seats in the initial stages, has scaled down its demand to 15.
Interestingly, the Congress wants to contest in more seats seems to have learnt a hard lesson during the seat-sharing talks in Tamil Nadu. The national party, a few days before, while announcing its committee to hold seat-sharing talks, kept out all its AICC in-charges of Puducherry. The seven-member committee headed by Puducherry MP and PCC chief V. Vaithilingam consists of only local leaders, including former Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy, former ministers M.O.H.F Shahjahan, M. Kandasamy and CLP leader M. Vaithiyanathan. This committee will hold talks with the DMK for seat sharing for the upcoming polls. The most interesting part of this move was that the announcement to constitute a committee without the AICC in-charges came from none other than Girish Chodankar who was looked at as the main reason for Congress’s hard bargain with the DMK. His public remarks against the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu and his praise for actor Vijay and his TVK led to all the confusion in the alliance talks.
Incidentally, the DMK, which is the principal opposition in the Puducherry Assembly, has been nurturing its dream to lead the alliance and climb to power. The DMK had in fact outperformed the Congress, while being in the alliance, in 2021. The DMK, which is led by Arakkonam MP S. Jagathrakshakan, had time and again expressed his party’s desire to form a government in Puducherry.