CHENNAI: A day after calling on the Chief Minister and TVK president C Joseph Vijay at the Secretariat, senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram visited the CPM's state headquarters, P Ramamurthy Illam in T Nagar, on Wednesday and met the party's State secretary P Shanmugam.

Sources described the meeting as a courtesy call and said Chidambaram's visit came after he met veteran Marxist leader and former Rajya Sabha MP TK Rangarajan at his residence on Ramanujan Street in T Nagar.

CPM Central Committee member N Gunasekaran and State Secretariat member K Kanagaraj were also present during the interaction.

The visit triggered speculation in political circles about possible discussions relating to the forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections. However, sources in the CPM maintained that the meeting was purely informal.

"We initially thought the discussion might be about a Rajya Sabha seat, but he did not raise the issue," a source said.

According to sources, the conversation largely revolved around the current political situation in Tamil Nadu in the aftermath of the Assembly elections. During the informal interaction, Chidambaram sought the CPM leadership's assessment of the electoral mood and enquired whether the party had sensed a "TVK wave" during the election campaign, sources added.