Congress may not get 10 LS seats again

Chennai: The sudden elevation of Adhav Arjun, the son-in-law of ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin, as the deputy general secretary of the VCK at the party’s high level committee meeting has triggered a speculation that the party might now insist on getting three seats to contest from in the Lok Sabha elections and even seek a general constituency to field him.

Among the rumours floating around is one on the DMK, the leader of the coalition, possibly taking away a few seats from the Congress, which had contested in nine constituencies in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry in 2019, to accommodate Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam in the alliance and to be generous to the VCK.

Though the final allocation of seats to the Congress would be known only when the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge and DMK president M K Stalin meet up after the Assembly session in Chennai, TNCC sources say that they would not accept a drastic cut in the number of seats.

While the AIADMK, feeling lonely with no big allies for company after it broke ties with the BJP, was keen on taking the Congress into its fold and had made moves towards that, the TNCC leaders feel that such an alliance would not be tenable and durable. Besides, the national leadership would prefer to go with the DMK, which had proved of late to be a natural ally, they said.

So, even if one or two seats were taken away from the Congress, it might not snap ties with the DMK, who is now keen on giving a seat to another ally, the Manithaneya Makkal Katchi, in the coming election.

With all the old allies of the previous two elections remaining in the fold with an exemption of India Jananayaga Katchi (IJK) of T R Pachamuthu, who had shifted loyalties to the BJP, the DMK is also constrained to accommodate all of them at a time when the DMK leaders want a larger contingent from their party inside the Lok Sabha to fight the Union Government.

If the BJP was voted out of power, the DMK might not find it difficult to deal with the situation but if the BJP returned to power again, they might need a strong force in the House, they feel. But chances are bleak for them to increase their numbers beyond one or two since every ally wants more seats now.

The speculation is that all the parties will be given the same number of seats they contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls though there could be changes in the constituencies and only the Congress would lose two or three and the VCK gain one more.

However, given his social standing and financial background, Adhav Arjun might be given a seat to contest from by the VCK even if it failed to garner three seats. Otherwise, the man who made the Trichy conference of the VCK such a big success, need not have been elevated to the level of deputy general secretary now.