KNMDK gets one seat from DMK

DMK president M K Stalin and KNMDK leader E R Eswaran signed the pact at the former’s headquarters Anna Arivalayam in the city.

As per the agreement, KNMDK will contest on DMK’s ‘Rising Sun’ symbol in the lone seat allotted to it, as was reported by DT Next earlier. The party is most likely to be allocated the Namakkal Parliamentary seat, a stronghold of State Electricity Minister and Senior AIADMK leader P Thangamani.

The Kongu party has been preparing the ground for the upcoming Parliamentary elections with the party chief constituting booth-level coordination teams and assigning tasks to them.

KNMDK, the DMK hopes, could be its solution to the overwhelming support the AIADMK enjoys among the majority Gounder community in the western region. With no prominent leaders to rely on in Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode and Salem, mainly after the demise of former minister Veerapandi S Arumugam, whose writ run large in incumbent Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s home district, the principal opposition party plans to make up for the absence by roping in a community-backed party in the election.

KNMDK is the first non-ally of DMK to get a poll pact formalised in the alliance. Other than the Congress and IUML, the DMK is yet to seal the deal with other probable allies, like the CPI, CPM, MDMK and VCK with whom the DMK has only had first round of formal seat sharing negotiation thus far.