Chennai: In a late night development, the Bharatiya Janata Party has inked the seat-sharing pact with its senior ally, AIADMK, for 20 Assembly seats in the 6 April elections.
The national party will also contest the by-election to Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat, which it lost in 2019.
The Kanyakumari vacancy was caused by the death of Congress MP H. Vasanthakumar.
The seat-sharing agreement was signed by O Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, coordinator of the AIADMK, and Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, joint coordinator of the AIADMK, C T Ravi, national general secretary of the BJP and in-charge of Tamilnadu, and L Murugan, BJP State president.
A joint statement said, ‘It has been decided that the AIADMK and the BJP will be part of an alliance to face the Assembly polls. Based on an agreement reached between the AIADMK and the BJP today (Friday), it has been decided to allot 20 seats to the BJP under the alliance led by the AIADMK.’
The AIADMK is yet to finalise seat-sharing with actor Vijayakant’s DMDK. Earlier in the day, AIADMK announced its first list of six candidates that included top leaders including Palaniswami and Panneerselvam.
Palaniswami will contest the election from Edappadi constituency, while Panneerselvam will contest from Bodinayakanur.