With this the political uncertainty at the Centre has also come to an end after the deal was struck. Earlier, the DMK had announced to pull out its Ministers from the Union Council of Ministers accusing the Congress of being unreasonable in the seat sharing.
The DMK blinked in the battle of attrition and conceded 63 seats for Congress as demanded by it. The Congress Party General Secretary, Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters in New Delhi that the leadership of the two parties have finally decided the number of seats and Congress would contest 63 seats.
The deal was announced after the DMK Minister Dayanidhi Maran held two rounds of talks with Senior Congress leader Pranab Mukehrjee. Congress Party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and the Political Secretary to Congress President Ahmad Patel were also present in the meeting.
After the meeting, Senior DMK leaders M K Alagiri and Dayanidhi Maran drove to the residence of Sonia Gandhi to thank her for the deal.
In Chennai Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Tuesday announced that the DMK will contest 121 seats and Congress 63 under the seat sharing deal for the April 13 assembly polls. Making a simultaneous announcement of the deal in
Chennai, Karunanidhi said, he had taken away one seat each from his party, PMK and IUML to concede to Congress’ demand for 63 seats.
This is the second highest number of seats Congress will be contesting in alliance with DMK after 1980, when both parties shared 112 seats each under an electoral pact then.