Jaya seals deal: 7 seats for BJP

Sources said the BJP had been given Nagercoil, Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Chidambaram, North Madras and Pondicherry. Of these, the BJP already has MPs in Nagercoil, Nilgiris and Coimbatore.

Jayalalithaa has displayed magnanimity by giving the BJP a higher number of seats compared to the expected five or six. However, she had her way by blocking the candidature of Thirunavukkarasu from Pudukkottai which he represented in the dissolved Lok Sabha. The BJP had been pressing her for the allocation of Pudukkottai till the last minute.

But the BJP too couldn’t dump Thirunavukkarasu, considering its long-term interests. Sources said the party is likely to placate him by nominating him as convenor of the state poll campaign committee and then getting him elected to the Rajya Sabha from either Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh.

The BJP had staked its claim for 10 seats, while the AIADMK had mooted six in the initial talks. Sources said both sides had identified 10 seats each, of which BJP could be given its share. The two lists were later combined to make the final choice.

The BJP’s prospects were rated good in most constituencies, except North Madras where DMK and Communist parties have a strong presence. The BJP would have preferred contesting the upper-caste dominated South Madras, but it had to accept North Madras as part of the deal.

In the seat-trading season, Pondicherry is a hotspot. The two traditional players, Congress and DMK, are set to stay out of the race, leaving two marginal players, PMK and BJP, to slug it out in the sole Lok Sabha constituency. Though a traditional Congress constituency, DMK chief M. Karunanidhi has allotted Pondicherry to PMK.