Negotiations have progressed ‘quite far’; PMK’s inclusion a sticking point

BJP president Amit Shah and the party’s Tamil Nadu election in-charge, Piyush Goyal, will visit Chennai on Tuesday to broadly finalise the alliance with the AIADMK for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

Sources said they had received an itinerary, as per which Mr. Shah would arrive in the city by a special aircraft at 10.45 a.m. on Tuesday, and leave at 3 p.m.

Sources in the BJP were tight-lipped on whether there would be an announcement about the nitty-gritty of the alliance on Tuesday. They admitted that the talks with the AIADMK had gone “quite far”, but added that uncertainty over the PMK joining the alliance prevailed, and needed to be resolved.

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“The broad contours of the arrangement are more or less final, with the BJP asking for 13-15 seats, not just for itself but also for accommodating the Puthiya Tamilagam (which has sought the Tenkasi seat), the Vijayakant-led DMDK, the Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (who have sought one seat) and another smaller party, which has also asked for one seat. If the PMK signs up with our alliance, we are ready to offer four seats,” said a source.

EPS yet to give nod

While the broad contours of the seat adjustment have been hammered out, the final nod for the arrangement from AIADMK co-coordinator and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami is yet to be obtained, and the four seats that have been earmarked for the PMK is one of the reasons for this. “It is difficult for the AIADMK, with a large number [of] sitting MPs, to give so many seats away. So, the PMK decision is crucial,” said a source in the BJP.

A senior BJP office-bearer said the party was staking a claim to Kanniyakumari — a seat it already holds — along with Nilgiris (Reserved), one of the three seats in Chennai and one in Madurai (since the Central government had sanctioned the setting up of an All India Institute of Medical Sciences there).

(With inputs from T. Ramakrishnan and T.K. Rohit in Chennai)