The country's opposition party Congress and the State's opposition DMK on Wednesday night signed the seat sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha polls under which the former would contest ten seats, nine in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry. Speaking to reporters after signing the pact, DMK president M K Stalin said the constituencies to be contested by the Congress will be announced later on conclusion of seat sharing exercise with other allies.
Accompanied by All India Congress Committee general secretaries Mukul Wasnik, incharge of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, K C Venugopal, state unit party chief K S Alagiri, Stalin said DMK had already appointed committees to steer the alliance process. For his part, Venugopal described the alliance between Congress and DMK as a long term relationship since the days of late M Karunanidhi, and added "we are very happy," about the seat sharing agreement.
He added: "The country very much needs this alliance, the entire country is disappointed with the Narendra Modi government." Stalin, who said that other friendly parties would be invited for alliance, however said no alliance talks were held with the DMDK of actor-politician Vijayakanth, with whom the DMK was keen to have a tie-up in 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2016 Assembly elections.
He added that the DMK-led Front would win all the 40 seats--39 in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry--as the people were disatisfied with the five-year rule of the BJP-led NDA headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
