Districts want DMK to retain winnable seats

Party sources privy to the meeting told DTNext that the district secretaries wanted the high command to reserve all winnable seats for DMK men and not ‘waste’ the seats by giving them away to allies, if there be any. 

The closed-door district secretaries meeting should definitely send chill down the spine of Congress who are confident that they would be allowed to ride piggyback again and make good on their Assembly election rout by securing some civic council representations next month. 

Pertinently, that may not be all for Congress to worry. The secretaries have also urged the high command to leave negotiation to regional level. “We have specifically asked our leaders to advise allies to negotiate with district secretaries to finalise seats. Only the district secretaries would know the strongholds and weaknesses at ward level and hence the suggestion,” a DMK leader who attended the meeting said, admitting that the high command had okayed their suggestion. 

It has been reliably understood that the idea was in fact first proposed by none but DMK treasurer MK Stalin himself. DMK sources also revealed that MMK (Manithaneya Makkal Katchi), which has publicly expressed willingness to continue in DMK alliance for the ensuing civic polls, has already opened negotiations with DMK district leaders following Anna Arivalayam’s instructions.

Meanwhile, the DMK high command has appointed 29 observers to oversee poll preparations across the state. The list of observers also has some noteworthy inclusions like former Rajya Sabha MP TMS Selvaganapathi who will oversee Erode and Tirupur districts, and Poochi Murugan and Surya Vetrikondan, the duo which went on a statewide tour assessing the DMK’s failure in last Assembly election. 

The meeting also adopted resolutions condemning chief minister J Jayalalithaa for functioning unilaterally on the Cauvery row and Karnataka for the attack on Tamils during the last fortnight.