Congress list of seats in Tamil Nadu to be announced today

After marathon discussions, stretching out for five rounds, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and its principal ally, the Congress, last night completed the process of identifying seats they would contest in the April 13 Assembly elections in the state and decided to release the list today.

"The talks have reached the final stage and the list will be finalised and issued tomorrow," Tamil Nadu Congress chief K V Thankgabalu, who is heading Congress poll panel, told reporters after completing the fifth round of talks at DMK headquarters, Anna Arivalayam here last night.

"Wait for a few hours for the good news," he said after the talks with the DMK poll panel, led by Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin.
Leaders of the two parties are expected to give final touches this morning and finalise the list of 63 seats, allotted to the Congress.
After finalising the list, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, a member of the Congress panel, is likely to leave for Delhi.
The DMK-Congress alliance took a nasty turn, when the DMK, taking exception to the Congress’s increasing demand for seats, decided to snap ties and pull out from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre.
But after the patch-up, with the DMK agreeing to concede 63 seats, began the process of identifying the seats allotted to it. Absenting themselves from the ongoing Parliament session, Union Ministers
Chidambaram and G K Vasan and Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Jayanthi Natarajan were camping here for nearly a week to finalise the deal.
Leaders of the two parties held four rounds of talks stretching out for two days, with the Congress said to be keen on some seats which were either wanted by the DMK or its ally, the PMK.
The negotiations appeared to have hit a roadblock on Saturday, when the Congress leaders, after promising to come for talks, failed to turn up. They met at Sathyamurthy Bhavan, the Congress headquarters and disbursed, without making a visit to the DMK office.
Yesterday morning also they failed to turned up and in a sudden development last evening, the Congress poll panel members, again met at Congress headquarters and after a brief discussion, visited DMK headquarters around 2115 hrs and finalised the deal after an hour of talks.
After releasing the list of seats, allotted to the Congress, the DMK is expected to announce the 30 constituencies for the PMK, 10 to the VCK and seven to the Kongunadu Munnetra Kazhagam and release its own list of 120 seats.