CHENNAI: Having roped in major partners, the ruling AIADMK and the opposition DMK have started seat-sharing talks with smaller allies for the Lok Sabha poll. While the AIADMK allotted the lone Puducherry seat to NR Congress, the DMK held its first round of talks with the CPM and the CPI on Thursday.Meanwhile, in what is seen as a move to woo the DMDK, former TNCC president S Thirunavukkarasar called on DMDK chief Vijayakant in Chennai to inquire about his health. “Vijayakant is the leader of a political party and I am a politician. If I say that we did not discuss politics, it would be a lie. I told him to take a right decision keeping in mind the state of affairs in the last four and half years,” Thirunavukkarasar said.Miffed at the preference given to the PMK, a party with a dominant presence in the northern districts of state, the DMDK, which claims a pan-Tamil Nadu presence, is still keeping the AIADMK-BJP combine guessing.However, Union minister of state for shipping and finance Pon Radhakrishnan expressed the hope that the DMDK would join the AIADMK-led alliance.Unmindful of the DMDK hassle, PMK founder S Ramadoss will be hosting a dinner on Friday evening for CM Edappadi K Palaniswami, deputy CM O Panneerselvam, other ministers and AIADMK functionaries at his famed Thailapuram garden, on the Tindivanam–Puducherry national highway, about 130km south of Chennai.Meanwhile, the two Communist parties, having held their first round of seat sharing discussions and having put forward a request for at least two seats each, will return to Anna Arivalayam (DMK headquarters) on Friday for concluding the seat sharing arrangements. Two other parties – the MDMK and the VCK – are also slated to hold talks and finalise their seats on Friday. “Stalin, who is undertaking a four-day election tour from this weekend, is keen to finalise the seats with these parties before that,” a DMK leader said.

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