Miffed over ruling AIADMK’s “approach” in finalising seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu, CPI(M) and CPI on Thursday called off their month-old alliance with the Jayalalitha-led party.
The leaders of the two Left parties went into a huddle in Chennai in the wake of dilly dallying by AIADMK to reach a consensus on the seat allotment issue and decided to end the poll pact and fight the election “together”.
In a joint statement, CPI(M) and CPI state secretaries G Ramakrishnan and D Pandian respectively said several rounds of seat-sharing talks with their senior partner yielded no fruits.
The statement said the Left parties had aligned with AIADMK to fight the elections with a view to checking the combine led by Congress and BJP, they said.
“There was no agreement on the seat-sharing despite many rounds of talks due to AIADMK’s approach. Further, with the party having announced candidates for all 40 seats and going ahead with the election campaign, CPI and CPI (M) have decided to face the Lok Sabha polls together,” it said.
Mr. Ramakrishnan repeated his claim that AIADMK was not prepared to come to an ‘amicable solution’ even after six rounds of talks were held. He recalled that his party had held its state council on Wednesday and CPI on Thursday where the issue was discussed.
Later, leaders of the respective parties held talks before calling off their ties with the AIADMK.
The Left parties and AIADMK had earlier fought the 2009 Parliamentary polls and 2011 Assembly elections on a common platform.
