Ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha election, Congress and DMK hold ‘satisfying’, ‘smooth’ alliance talks

Addressing reporters at the DMK headquarters in Chennai after the meeting, Alagiri said, “Our leaders from Delhi discussed the (Lok Sabha) election. Mukul ji is familiar with DMK members. They have a good rapport with each other and the discussions were based on that. The talks were satisfying. We will speak about the rest of things in the upcoming days”.

The TNCC president refused to diverge details on the number of seats Congress had demanded from the senior ally and said both Congress and DMK have decided not to talk to the media over the seat-sharing discussions they had. He added reports about Congress having provided a list of 12 constituencies they wish to contest in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha election were fake.

“We did not give any list. If we had provided a list, those details would be on our party letterhead bearing my signature. You are putting a story by yourself and asking questions based on that… How to win 40 constituencies (in Tamil Nadu), how can we select the candidates, what kind of campaign we can take forward, how to take on BJP and AIADMK, and how to keep our alliance partners happy were the things we discussed in today’s meeting,” Alagiri said.

DMK MP T R Baalu also told reporters the preliminary discussion with Congress was smooth and they will hold further rounds of talks.

“They (Congress) haven’t provided any list of constituencies they wish to contest neither we asked for,” he said adding that every party would like to contest in more seats and he too wishes for DMK to contest in more than 20 seats compared to the 2019 election. “Even I want the DMK to contest in all 40 constituencies. When it comes to discussions, when more parties are in alliance, we should be able to accommodate them, that’s what is called alliance,” he said.

In response to a question about whether there are chances for any new party to join the DMK-led alliance, Baalu said they are open to any party coming in as long as they don’t ask for seats.

When asked whether Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s exit from the INDIA alliance will have any impact, Baalu said since the beginning Nitish had some issues and they did not know whether he was interested in the alliance.

“There is no impact because of that (Nitish leaving the alliance). He did not provide any plans. He said that we all should speak in Hindi and not English during our alliance meeting, but for the sake of the alliance, we tolerated it and remained silent and did not raise an issue about it,” he said.

Baalu added that Nitish did not make any demand to make him the prime minister candidate of the INDIA bloc.

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