The Congress on Wednesday formalised the seat sharing deal with the DMK with state Congress president K.V. Thangkabalu signing the agreement with DMK president and chief minister M. Karunanidhi amidst reports that Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi had earmarked about ten constituencies for his Youth Congress members.
The five-member negotiating team of the Congress will discuss constituencies at party headquarters, Satyamurthy Bhavan, on Thursday morning and hold talks with the DMK team the same evening.
Sources say identification of the 63 Congress constituencies could end the same day since 42 out of the 48 seats allotted to Congress in the 2006 Assembly polls would be retained. The task ahead would only be to identify the six seats lost in the delimitation exercise and the 15 extra seats allotted to the national party.
AICC sources told this newspaper that the Congress would choose eight and DMK the remaining seven.
Sources also said that Gandhi had earmarked up to 10 constituencies for All India YC general secretary Ms Jothimani, national secretary Mr Mahendran, state president Mr Yuvaraja, state vice president Mr Varadarajan and Salem office bearer Mr Arthanari among others in the youth wing. Erode west, Athur, Coimbatore West and Namakkal are among the seats personally chosen by Mr Gandhi, who employed a Mumbai based agency to assess the party and other regional parties strength in the state.