New Delhi, Mar 20:
After more than a hour long meeting with BJP master poll strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah at New Delhi last night, AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, heading the NDA in Tamil Nadu for the high stakes April 23 Assembly elections, on Friday said the seat sharing talks with the allies would begin tomorrow and would be completed in four days.
Talking to reporters at the New Delhi airport before emplaning for Chennai, he said there was no hitch among the NDA in partners over seat sharing and that the process would begin tomorrow.
Without disclosing on what had transpired in his meeting with Amit Shah though seat sharing issue was said to have been discussed in detail during the discussions, Palaniswami said “the seat sharing talks will commence tomorrow. It will be completed in four days … there is no hitch in it among our partners. Then the constituencies to be contested by the NDA partners will be identified and finalised and our electoral journey will continue”.
Justifying his meeting with Amit Shah, Palaniswami, who is the CM face of the NDA, said since the Union Minister was busy as Assembly elections were scheduled simultaneously for five states, he came to Delhi to meet him.
According to reports, the AIADMK was keen to contest 165-170 seats of the total 234 Assembly constituencies, leaving the rest to the BJP to be shared among the other NDA parties, with the saffron party likey to contest anywhere between 40 to 45 seats.
To a query, he said there was no possibility of new parties joining the NDA. On the purported efforts by the BJP, which was said to have held parleys with the nascent Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) of actor-turned-politician Vijay to rope it into the NDA to strengthen it further to take on the ruling DMK, Mr Palaniswami reiterated that no talks were held with it.
“It was the media which has been saying like that. Both sides have been stating that no talks were held”, he said, stoutly denying it.
The AIADMK leader said the party’s manifesto for the polls would be released in a week’s time.
Stating that no new schemes had been launched during the five year rule of the ruling DMK and the last and situation in the state has hit the nadir in the wake of murders and crimes against women and children, he also said that the victory prospects of the AIADMK was bright.
Meanwhile, leaders of NDA partners Dr Anbumani, heading one of the PMK factions and also a Rajya Sabha MP, and AMMK Founder TTV Dhinakaran, who had earlier walked out of the Front and returned back ahead of the polls, too left for New Delhi to meet Amit Shah purportedly to discuss about the number of seats they wish to contest.
In a related development, BJP State President Nainar Nagendran, who too was said to fly to the National capital to finalise the numbers, justified the saffron party demanding the seats that were held by senior AIADMK leaders. It ws quite natural to seek the constituencies which we wish to contest. There was nothing wrong it. Everything would be decided during the seat sharing talks, he added.
He also reiterated that there was no issues over seat sharing in the NDA.
Apart from BJP, PMK and AMMK, other parties in the NDA included Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) of former Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan and minor parties like NJP and IJK.