The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has finalised its seat-sharing arrangement with the NDA for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly election.
About 27 seats have been allocated to the BJP, 18 to the Pattali Makkal Katchi and 11 to Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam. The AIADMK will contest the remaining 178 seats.
The agreement was signed by the AIADMK chief Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) and BJP leader Piyush Goyal after days of intense discussion within the AIADMK-led alliance.
Early reports citing party sources had said that the party would retain the dominant majority of the seats, around 160 to 178 out of the total 234 constituencies, to maximise chances of a majority.
Palaniswami also seems to have his eyes set on the chief ministerial role with the next election and has set a target of winning over 200 seats.
Initial reports had also suggested that the BJP would receive a higher allocation than the last time. In the 2021 election, the party contested alone for 20 seats but won only four. The alliance however seems to believe that the party’s influence has grown in regions like Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Kanyakumari and Nellai and has allocated them 27 seats in these areas.
The AIADMK seems to have also allowed an allocation of slightly higher number of seats to the BJP to secure the 11 per cent votes which would otherwise have been scattered among the DMK alliance and Vijay TVK party in the four way elections.
The pact was signed after the seat sharing talks turned into a tussle between the AIADMK and the BJP. EPS had flown to Delhi three times over three months for the negotiations.
Union Minister Amit Shah had also monitored the developments and was directly involved in the discussion before the pact was sealed.
In the 2021 election, the AIADMK had contested 179 seats but managed to win only 66.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are trying to increase the number of BJP members in the Tamil Nadu Assembly to double digits.