DMK gives more seats to Congress after near collapse of alliance: What’s the political message?

The DMK-Congress alliance had won 151 seats in the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly election

• Congress and DMK seal alliance for Tamil Nadu polls after talks
• Congress gets 29 Assembly seats and one Rajya Sabha seat
• DMK faces challenge to share seats with smaller allies

Did our AI summary help?

After a near collapse of the alliance between the Congress and the DMK, the two signed the deal on Wednesday night for the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly election and Rajya Sabha polls. Had the Congress gone with actor Vijay's TVK, as some of the Congress functionaries in the state wanted it to, the party may have got its wish to contest 41 seats, but would have been devoid of strong alliance support and the Rajya Sabha seat it got from the deal.

Congress had demanded two Rajya Sabha seats to maintain its Leader of Opposition (LoP) position. However, DMK could not offer more than one, as it has given assurance of a Rajya Sabha seat to new alliance partner Vijayakant's DMDK, which, on Tuesday, got one Rajya Sabha seat to be contested by its party treasurer LK Sudeesh. The TVK, being a new party, has no representation in the Tamil Nadu Assembly and, therefore, the Congress could not have got any Rajya Sabha seat. The last day for Rajya Sabha nomination is today (March 5) and Congress has selected M. Christopher Tilak to contest the seat.

The negotiations between the election committees of the DMK and the Congress ended in stalemate as state Congress functionaries and the AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu and head of the Congress seat-sharing committee Girish Chodankar stuck to their demand for at least 33 seats to contest in the Assembly poll and two Rajya Sabha seats. It threatened to break away from the alliance and go with the TVK. The DMK offered 25 Assembly seats (same number as last time) and one Rajya Sabha seat. Again it contended that the number of alliance partners have increased.

After DMK gave the ultimatum for settling seat sharing deal by March 3, the Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi, who were in favour of continuing alliance with DMK, stepped in. They sent veteran Congressman P Chidambaram to meet DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin for negotiation and end the stalemate by reducing the demand to 30 seats. Meanwhile, Congress MP (Sivaganga) Karti Chidambaram and DMK MP (Thoothukudi) Kanimozhi had been having back-channel discussions to save the alliance. Kharge too remained in touch with Kanimozhi.

When Chidambaram and Stalin met on March 3, Stalin “out of respect" for Chidambaram agreed to give two more seats for Congress to contest in the Assembly election. But no more than one Rajya Sabha seat. Rahul Gandhi approved the negotiations for 28-29 seats. The DMK gave one more seat to seal the deal with Congress on Wednesday night.

The magnanimity shown by DMK will go a long way to project a strong and well-knit alliance to the electorate. DMK has always shown magnanimity to its alliance partners, sometimes to the point it sacrificed its contested seats, much to the disappointment of its contestants. Having decided on the numbers for Congress, DMK now has a tough task ahead to share out the seats to the smaller partners. It might have to contest fewer seats than in 2021.

The DMK wanted to avoid the impression that the alliance was weaker than five years ago. But the concern now is whether it can get the magic number of 113 seats to get a majority on its own without having to depend on the Congress, which is sure to demand a share in power.

Power-sharing was one of the demands of the Congress. Although the DMK was adamant that it would not agree on a coalition government, by giving away more seats to allies, both old and new, it might have increased the chances of a coalition government. So far, only the Left parties have said they will not be part of the government.