Though the Tamil Nadu ruling party ADMK had inked a deal with PMK and BJP over seat-sharing for the upcoming assembly polls, it still finds a vacuum in forming a potential alliance with amicable consensus to contest in the polls. The ruling party is finding it difficult to accommodate all the parties in the alliance that was formed in 2019. After convincing BJP to settle for 20 assembly seats, ADMK is now moving ahead of another major challenge- finalizing the deal with Vijayakanth's DMDK. 

DMDK is playing hard against the ADMK with its only demand of getting more seats than PMK. Earlier, ADMK had signed a deal with PMK by offering 23 assembly seats, and the state ruling party had ensured that PMK should be the major stakeholder in the alliance, due to which ADMK had convinced BJP to settle for 20 assembly seats and Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat for the by-poll. However, DMDK has been displaying a fashion that it will not exercise alliance with ADMK if its demand is not met. 

The talks between ADMK and DMDK are in an impasse with having no clear blueprint to attain an amicable resolution. Irked by the statements of DMDK leader LK Sudheesh against ADMK, the ruling leaders have unprioritized the alliance with DMDK. While Vijayakanth's party had begun talks with ADMK to get 41 seats initially by citing that it was once the opposition party in the assembly, the DMDK has now admitted that it had demanded 25 seats, two seats more than PMK, from ADMK. 

According to reports, there have been no talks between ADMK and DMDK for the past three days. DMDK General Secretary Parthasarathy has on Friday said that the party is demanding 25 seats from ADMK. He said, "We have informed them about the number of seats we want. We have communicated to the ADMK that we will sign the poll pact only if they meet our demand". He further added that he was hopeful that the seat sharing will be finalized in two days.  

Parthasarathy said that the DMDK had received more than 2,000 applications from poll aspirants. He further revealed that the party has asked for a Rajya Sabha ticket from ADMK along with 25 assembly seats. However, the state ruling party has been pushed to balance the party's interests and to convince the allied parties. It has been expected that the ADMK would ink a deal with DMDK by offering 12-15 seats to accommodate the smaller parties in the alliance.

Out of 234 assembly seats, ADMK is planning to directly contest in 170 seats to meet its rival DMK, and going by its plan, it will form the alliance by allocating the rest 64 seats to the allied parties. ADMK had already allotted 23 seats to PMK and 20 seats to BJP and it has only got 21 seats in its kitty to accommodate other parties like DMDK, Tamil Maanila Congress (GK Vasan), and Puthiya Thamilagam. While DMDK had demanded 25 seats, Vasan's party had also demanded 12 seats from ADMK, pushing the ruling party to brace for a huge challenge. 

As the talks are observing deadlock, the parties are in the need to complete them and form an alliance before the start of filing the nomination papers for the elections on March 12. According to the latest reports, senior ADMK leaders will hold talks with DMDK on Saturday at around 5 pm to finalize the seat-sharing. The political observers say that if DMDK stays stubborn in its stand, ADMK will decide to drop Vijayakanth's party from the alliance by citing that the party doesn't have a strong voter base in the state to demand more seats. 

The reports say that ADMK will try to refrain from lowering the number of seats to contest directly. As the election fervor is on in the state, the parties are under strong watch from the voters. DMDK had on Saturday begun to hold interviews with ticket seekers from all districts and the interview drive will run till Monday. On Friday, LK Sudheesh had submitted an application seeking a party's ticket to contest in the polls, and Vijayakanth's son Vijaya Prabhakaran had also moved his application to contest in the polls. It must be noted that Tamil Nadu will go to the polls on April 6 and the votes will be counted on May 2 during which the results will be announced.