Chennai, Feb 18: DMK has agreed to give seven Lok Sabha seats to Congress instead of 16 seats, which the grand-old party had demanded. The Congress had contested on nine seats in the 2019 general elections by being an alliance partner in the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) led by the DMK. The party had won eight seats while losing the Theni Lok Sabha seat where O.P. Raveendranathan of AIADMK won the seat by defeating senior Congress leader E.V.K.S. Elangovan.
Sources said that the Congress’ list of candidates was too large and the DMK team led by T.R. Baalu conveyed to the Congress leadership that it can only consider giving no more than seven seats. Earlier, DMK District Secretaries had conveyed to the party leadership that the Congress must be restricted to a smaller number of seats as it has limited strength on the ground. Sources said that the Congress state leadership is expecting that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will intervene and ask the DMK Chief to give the party a few more seats. A senior DMK leader told IANS that the strength of the Congress is minuscule in almost all the constituencies and that even the seven seats they got is more than sufficient.
Stalin inaugurates new projects
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Sunday inaugurated several buildings including classrooms and libraries across various districts, and took part in the foundation stone laying ceremony for new roads, with the aim of boosting public infrastructure in the state. He has been promoting the idea of “inclusive development” across the state, and the new roads in particular will greatly benefit tribal communities whose settlements have had poor connectivity. Stalin took part virtually, a government release here said on Sunday. In Namakkal, several classrooms built at a cost of Rs 80.85 crore for government schools across the district under the rural development department were inaugurated. (Agencies)
Stalin also threw open buildings that would house libraries under the school education department, which were constructed at a cost of Rs 48.56 crore.
The buildings are housed in government schools in Theni, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Salem districts.