Stalin offers 27 seats to Cong, impasse continues

Chennai: The deadlock in the DMK–Congress seat-sharing talks continued on Tuesday with DMK making a "final offer" of 27 assembly seats and a Rajya Sabha berth to Congress, which is yet to respond.In a last ditch attempt to end the impasse, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, accompanied by TNCC president K Selvaperunthagai met chief minister M K Stalin on Tuesday, "at the request of Sonia Gandhi," as a Congress leader put it. It is after this meeting at Stalin's residence that DMK increased its offer from 25 (as TOI reported on Monday) to 27 seats. During the talk that lasted more than an hour, sources said, Stalin explained the difficulty in giving more seats because of the inclusion of more partners in the alliance this time. "CM told Chidambaram that 27 is the maximum he can offer,'' a DMK source said. Chidambaram left the place saying he would get back after consulting the Congress top leadership. Later at night, DMK MP Kanimozhi is understood to have spoken to some Congress leaders in Delhi to impress upon them to accept the offer. Before Chidambaram's meeting with Stalin, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and K C Venugopal had a discussion. "Soniaji then had a meeting with Chidambaram," said a Congress functionary.DMK has, meanwhile, postponed the announcement of its Rajya Sabha nominees, which has a Thursday deadline. If the Congress does not respond, the DMK will announce three RS candidates; it has allotted one seat to DMDK. Senior DMK leaders said that discussions with the Congress are progressing "positively," with an outcome anticipated by Wednesday evening. A section of Congress continue to talk about alligning with Vijay's TVK in Delhi. "They believe Congress will get to contest 70 seats in the TVK alliance and win quite a few," said a senior Congress leader.