AIADMK allots 22 seats to left parties

After days of uncertainty and dragging, the seat-sharing issue between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and left parties for the April 13 Tamil Nadu assembly polls was finally sealed on Monday with the Jayalalithaa-led party allotting 22 seats to Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Communist Party of India.

CPI-M got 12 seats and CPI 10 under the deal signed by Jayalalithaa with respective state secretaries G Ramakrishnan (CPI-M) and D Pandian (CPI) at the end of prolonged talks with the left parties. A tough stand by the CPI and CPI-M over the number of seats had stretched the negotiations, even as AIADMK successfully managed to bring actor-politician Vijayakant's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam into its rainbow alliance.

Speaking to mediapersons, Pandian said the alliance had the support of the people, while Ramakrishnan pledged that his party would work for the victory of AIADMK-led alliance in all the 234 constituencies. When the talks for seat-sharing were marked by uncertainty, DMK president M Karunanidhi had hinted that the Left parties could join his combine, but they made it clear that their fight was against the 'very anti-people policies' of the United Progressive Alliance at the centre and the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu.

For the 2006 Assembly elections, the CPI-M and CPI had aligned with DMK, but parted ways with it to fight the 2009 Lok Sabha polls from the AIADMK-led platform. The left parties have a sizeable strength in the current assembly with CPI-M having nine members and CPI six.

The Communists have a considerable presence in industrial belts such as Coimbatore and the neighbouring textile

hub of Tirupur.