After a four-and-a-half-hour meeting of the Congress in Delhi attended by 42 leaders from Tamil Nadu on Saturday, the party reaffirmed its decision not to leave the DMK alliance ahead of the ensuing state polls, people aware of the details said on Sunday.
Party president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi addressed the meeting in the beginning. Kharge raised the issue of state leaders speaking in different positions — a section wants to leave the DMK alliance and join actor Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), another section wants Congress to demand more seats and significantly a share in power while a section wants status quo. “Kharge insisted that this should have been avoided and that the high command will speak on the alliance,” a state leader said.
Each of the state leaders were given a chance to speak. “After listening to everyone, the national leadership made it clear that there was no necessity to leave the DMK and this was definitely not the time to do it,” the leader quoted above said, adding that it has been a winning coalition. “But, the party will demand for more seats by protecting the interests of the Congress from the local bodies, districts and in the Centre.” It is not clear yet if the Congress will push for power sharing as a pre-poll agreement or make that demand if the DMK fails to win a majority.
In the previous 2021 assembly elections, the DMK allotted 25 seats to its main ally Congress and the national party won 18 of them in the 234 assembly seats. Congress won eight out of the 41 constituencies it was allotted in the 2016 assembly elections. Being the DMK’s key ally, the party seeks more in every election.
{{/usCountry}}In the previous 2021 assembly elections, the DMK allotted 25 seats to its main ally Congress and the national party won 18 of them in the 234 assembly seats. Congress won eight out of the 41 constituencies it was allotted in the 2016 assembly elections. Being the DMK’s key ally, the party seeks more in every election.
{{/usCountry}}“If we get 40 seats this time, and we win 35 seats, then we can choose our own leader from Tamil Nadu for the Rajya Sabha elections every two years without depending on leaders of the coalition,” a second state leader said. Even in the 2021 assembly elections, a section of the state Congress were upset with the number of seats allotted to them. “Most of the demand was to ask the DMK to accommodate more representation from the Congress and keep the alliance intact. There are only a handful of them who want to go to TVK but that will only split the votes and turn into an advantage for the AIADMK-BJP combine.”
The controversial tweet of Praveen Chakravarthy, the party’s data wing chief, unfavourably comparing Tamil Nadu’s debt levels to that of BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh in a post on December 28, 2025 was also discussed. Former Union finance minister P Chidambaram who was part of the meeting had previously criticised Chakravarthy over the tweet. “Questions were raised about different leaders taking different positions on the alliance publicly,” the first leader said. It was not clear by whom the questions were raised and how it was resolved. “But, it’s clear that the alliance will not break and we have to look at the big picture that is the Centre and the 2029 Lok Sabha elections,” a third leader said.
After the meeting on Saturday, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee chief K Selvaperunthagai told reporters that the high command instructed them not to discuss alliance matters in public. Selvaperunthagai had always maintained that the alliance was intact amid the strains. “They’ve told us with a lot of concern that we shouldn’t tweet, release statements on alliance. TNCC will uphold whatever AICC decides,” Selvaperunthagai said.
The five member team of the Congress party, constituted to hold discussions on the number of seats, met DMK president and chief minister MK Stalin and the ruling party’s team seat sharing committee on December 3 last year in Chennai.