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

AICC in-charge of Tamil Nadu and chairman of the party’s seat-sharing negotiating committee for the upcoming Assembly elections, Girish Chodankar, on Sunday said the 25 seats offered by the DMK to the Congress were unacceptable.

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

While the committee was scheduled to resume talks on Monday, sources in the DMK indicated on Sunday that this may not happen as Mr. Chodankar leaves for Goa.

In an interview MOMENTMr. Chodankar said the committees constituted by the DMK and the Congress held an “hourly” discussion (on Saturday) and hoped that the Congress’ demands would be accepted.

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

Mr. Chodankar said he hoped that the party’s wish list submitted to the DMK would be accepted, “only then can we proceed with it (talks).”

lack of warmth

Meanwhile, “brotherly warmth” appeared to be missing from Mr Gandhi’s birthday greetings to DMK leader and Prime Minister MK Stalin. Last year, in a social media post, Mr Gandhi addressed Mr Stalin as “my brother” and Stalin thanked “my dear brother”. This time, however, greetings and responses were formal and the word “brother” was conspicuously absent.