DMK’s offer of 25 seats not acceptable, says Congress leader

The AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu and head of the party’s seat-sharing negotiation committee for the upcoming Assembly election, Girish Chodankar, on Sunday said the 25 seats offered by the DMK to the Congress was not acceptable.

“We have been associated with the DMK for a very long time. Whenever they were in a crisis, we reduced our quota. Now, it is their turn,” he said.

While the committee was scheduled to resume negotiations on Monday, sources in the DMK indicated on Sunday that it may not happen as Mr. Chodankar had left for Goa.

In an interview to ANI, Mr. Chodankar said the committees formed by the DMK and the Congress had an “hour-long” discussion (on Saturday), and hoped the Congress’s demands would be accepted.

According to him, the committee is following the lead of the Tamil Nadu Congress leaders, who met party leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi recently.

Mr. Chodankar said he hoped the party’s wish list, submitted to the DMK, would be accepted, as “only then we can continue with this (negotiations)”.

Missing warmth

Meanwhile, the “brotherly warmth” appeared to be missing in Mr. Gandhi’s birthday greetings to DMK leader and Chief Minister M.K. Stalin. Last year, in a social media post, Mr. Gandhi had addressed Mr. Stalin as “my brother”, and the latter had thanked his “dear brother”. But this time, the greetings and the response were formal, with the word “brother” conspicuously absent.