Chennai: Signs of an end to the deadlock between DMK and CPM emerged on Sunday after chief minister M K Stalin invited CPM state secretary P Shanmugam for talks and explained the rationale behind reducing the number of seats. During the talks, Stalin offered five seats to CPM, one less than the seats allotted to the left party in 2021 election. Shanmugam said he was unable to respond immediately to Stalin’s request to agree for five seats since CPM’s state committee had decided on six seats, “We will discuss with the state committee on Monday and respond to the offer,” Shanmugam said. However, he said that CPM would not leave the DMK front. Shanmugam said CPM was firm that it will fight the 2026 election in the DMK-led secular progressive alliance. Our demand for more seats is different and our fight against BJP is different. Both should not be linked,” he said. This was the first meeting of Shanmugam with Stalin regarding seat sharing. All this while, CPM was holding talks with DMK’s seat-sharing talks panel led by party veteran T R Baalu. So far three round of talks were held and the CPM was firm on not giving up the demand for more seats than 2021. The state committee meeting on Saturday had decided to stick to six seats. “Since the chief minister had personally requested us to settle for five seats and to support the alliance we would discuss it in our party’s state committee meeting,” Shanmugam said. When asked whether CPM’s win in two seats out of the six it was allotted in 2021 was the reason behind DMK reducing number of seats now, Shanmugam said that was not the case. “In 2021, we were not allotted seats in places such as Coimbatore or Kanyakumari where we are strong,” he said. Asked whether CPM will demand a seat in Chennai, Shanmugam said Chennai is in Tamil Nadu and, hence, there is nothing wrong in seeking a seat in Chennai. However, he refused to divulge more details of seats CPM will seek from DMK.
