Doors still open for Captain Vijayakanth: PWA

Chennai: People’s Welfare Alliance coordinator and MDMK general secretary Vaiko on Sunday reiterated his front’s invitation to DMDK to join their alliance for the May 16 Assembly polls. After holding the first round of seat sharing talks with CPI (M), CPI and VCK at his residence in Anna Nagar, Mr Vaiko said that they are hopeful of DMDK chief Vijayakanth accepting their invitation to join their alliance.

“Our talks with DMDK are progressing smoothly,” he said, in the presence of CPI (M) state secretary G. Ramakrishnan, CPI state secretary R. Mutharasan and VCK chief Thol. Thirumavalavan. DMK president M. Karunanidhi also extended invitation to Captain more than once but his effort ended in vain. DMDK’s perceived four per cent vote share is quite attractive considering the low winning margin in multi cornered contests.

The MDMK leader said the preliminary seat sharing talks were held cordially. “We held the talks considering that DMDK may join our alliance. We did not go into how many seats each party will be contesting. These are just preliminary talks,” he told reporters here.

When asked whether DMDK’s indecision on joining their front was delaying seat sharing, he said that it was not so. “There is still a lot of time. Normally alliance talks would be held even after beginning of nominations. There is no need to hurry. We had already completed four phases of campaigning and we will cover the southern districts from March 28,” he said.

Mr Vaiko alleged that both AIADMK and DMK are getting ready to distribute money to the voters. “We are facing the election democratically with support of the people. This election is a contest between money power and democracy,” he said.