DMK’s offer of 25 seats not acceptable: Congress

Chennai: AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu Girish Chodankar said on Sunday that the DMK's offer of 25 seats for the Congress in the upcoming assembly election was `not acceptable' to the party. "They (DMK) offered us 25 seats, but that is not acceptable to us. Whatever we want, we have given it to them," Chodankar told ANI on Sunday, referring to the demands of Congress.
The Congress panel has given their wishlist to DMK he said and that he hoped the demands were accepted by the DMK. "Our committee and their (DMK) committee had a hour-long discussion. We only hope that the wish list that we submitted will be accepted by the DMK," Chodankar said. Chodankar who heads the five-member Congress panel held seat-sharing talks with the DMK alliance committee headed by DMK treasurer T R Baalu on Saturday. According to sources, Congress had sought 41 seats while the DMK had offered 25 seats during the talks. Congress said it wanted adequate seats so that the party could elect a Rajya Sabha MP on their own, which requires the support of 34 MLAs. "Right now, our priority is the assembly election so that we have sufficient numbers in the assembly so we can have our own member in the Rajya Sabha," he said. Chodankar also lauded TVK. To a query, he said TVK was attracting young voters. "It (TVK) is a new party. We cannot underestimate them. They are getting traction among the youngsters, and they are also recognising the strength of the Congress and our leader Rahul Gandhi in TN," Chodankar said. However, on the possibility of an alliance with TVK, Chodankar said that, right now, talks are going on only with the DMK. Later Chodankar told TOI that talks with the DMK seat-sharing committee were healthy. "Our discussions were healthy and we submitted our demands," Chodankar said.