CHENNAI: Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary P Shanmugam on Sunday said the party would take a final decision on the DMK president and chief minister MK Stalin’s offer of five Assembly seats for the 2026 election after internal consultations.
After a meeting with Chief Minister MK Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, Shanmugam said the meeting with the Chief Minister was the first direct interaction on seat-sharing, even though talks had been under way for nearly 20 days.
“The Chief Minister explained the constraints in allotting seats due to the presence of several parties in the alliance and requested us to accept five seats in the larger interest of sustaining the front,” he said.
Stating that the party could not take an immediate decision as it had been authorised only for a six-seat arrangement, Shanmugam said the Chief Minister had asked the CPM to deliberate internally and arrive at a favourable decision. “We will place the request before the State executive committee and convey our decision shortly,” he added.
Shanmugam said the CPM State committee, which met twice on the issue, had authorised the leadership not to insist on more than six seats and to focus on securing the six constituencies it contested in the 2021 Assembly election. The position was endorsed at the State committee meeting attended by party general secretary M A Baby on Saturday.
He asserted that the CPM would continue in the alliance irrespective of the outcome of the seat-sharing exercise. “While we will strive to secure a fair share, the party will not take any decision that alters its political course,” he said.
Rejecting suggestions that the DMK’s position was linked to the CPM winning only two of the six seats it contested in 2021, he said the party had not been allotted constituencies in districts where it had stronger organisational presence, such as Kanyakumari, Coimbatore and Tiruppur
On reports that the party had sought constituencies in Chennai, he said the CPM intended to contest in the city as well, and that the list of constituencies would be finalised only after the seat-sharing agreement was reached.