The Congress has, in principle, agreed to allocate two Assembly seats and a nominated MLA post to the Pattali Makkal Katchi as part of its seat-sharing agreement for elections to the 30-member Legislative Assembly on April 13.
The PMK has been allocated Manaveli and Mannadipet constituencies and, post-poll, will be given a nominated seat, PCC chief A.V. Subramanian told TheHindu . “However, we are yet to enter into a written agreement. The PCC is awaiting approval from the high command…”
When it was brought to his notice that former Chief Minister D. Ramachandran has filed his nomination papers from Mannadipet as Congress candidate, Mr. Subramanian said, “We are trying to prevail upon him to withdraw.”
Mr. Subramanian said that the party's ‘peace committee' was trying to persuade rebels to withdraw nominations against official candidates.
Congress functionaries have filed nominations from Raj Bhavan, Karaikal South and T. R Pattinam against official candidates of the party and its alliance partner DMK.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has decided not to withdraw its candidates against nominees of the All India N. R. Congress. It's candidates S. Padmanabhan (Bahour), L. Kalivardhan (Thirubhuvanai-SC) and C.H. Balamohan (Lawspet) have filed nominations even as the CPI (M)'s alliance partner AIADMK has entered into seat-sharing agreement with the N. R. Congress. Secretary of the Puducherry unit of the CPI (M) V. Perumal said that the party would campaign for the AIADMK and alliance partners in other constituencies. The CPI has settled for Kamaraj Nagar as against its demand for six seats. It has fielded local unit secretary Nara. Kalainathan, a nominated MLA in the present Assembly, against Chief Minister V. Vaithilingam.
