Tamil Nadu polls: Congress to contest 28 seats in alliance with DMK, bags one Rajya Sabha seat

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge reportedly spoke to DMK chief MK Stalin over the phone to discuss the matter.

• Congress to contest 28 seats in Tamil Nadu assembly polls
• Congress also gets one Rajya Sabha seat in DMK alliance
• DMK holds seat-sharing talks with AAP and DMDK for elections

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Days before the Election Commission declares the poll schedule for the upcoming elections in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the Congress on Wednesday finalised their seat-sharing agreement for the assembly polls. The Congress is set to contest 28 seats in the 234-member assembly. Additionally, the grand old party has also been offered one Rajya Sabha seat.

However, it is still unclear how many seats the DMK will contests as allocations have to be made to other allies as well. Several rounds of negotiations took place between the two allies to finalise seat sharing. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge reportedly spoke to DMK chief MK Stalin over the phone to discuss the matter.

DMDK general secretary Premalatha Vijayakanth is expected to reveal the candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, said DMDK leader LK Sudhish after signing the alliance agreement with the DMK.

According to a statement from the DMK, the decision to allot a Rajya Sabha seat to the DMDK came after talks between DMK President MK Stalin and DMDK treasurer LK Sudhish.

Meanwhile, Seat-sharing discussion was also held between DMK and AAP in Chennai for the upcoming polls.

"We came to the DMK HQ for discussions for the forthcoming assembly elections. We had a talk with the coordination committee from the DMK. We are planning to contest this election. So we have requested a few seats. In Tamil Nadu, we have to eradicate, we have to stop this BJP. So we need a strong alliance. As last time, in the parliament election, there was a very big alliance at the national level, even the AAP party was in it, and our leader, Arvind Kejriwal, also supported it... We plan to travel with the DMK alliance. Our leader will definitely talk to MK Stalin and will definitely get sizable seats, and AAP will be a very big opening in the South," Tamil Nadu Unit AAP Convenor SAN Vaseegaran said.