Days after inking the deal with the ADMK alliance over seat-sharing to contest in the Tamil Nadu assembly polls, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) has on Tuesday decided to contest in the assembly polls in Puducherry independently, staying off from the ADMK alliance. Puducherry will go to the assembly polls on April 6 like Tamil Nadu and the ADMK-BJP-PMK alliance in Tamil Nadu will not go on the floors in Puducherry. 

On Tuesday, PMK Puducherry in-charge Dhanraj has said that the party will be contesting independently in the assembly polls of the semi-state. The development has come when ADMK- BJP had sealed the deal with NR Congress to contest in the polls. Dhanraj said that PMK will contest in 12 seats in Puducherry and three seats in Karaikkal. 

According to reports, PMK had demanded the ADMK- BJP alliance to offer five assembly seats and after its demand was refused, the party has decided to contest independently in Puducherry. In Tamil Nadu, ADMK had offered 23 assembly seats for PMK and Puducherry would present a different stage of the alliance. On Tuesday, the BJP - ADMK alliance has inked a deal with NR Congress after multiple episodes of talks.

BJP in-charge of the Union Territory Nirmal Kumar Suran confirmed the deal and said that the seat-sharing talks had been completed between the three parties. Puducherry has 30 assembly seats of these 30, NR Congress, led by Former Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy, will contest from 16 seats while BJP and ADMK have together been allotted 14 seats. 

Nirmal Kuma Suran further said, "We will face election in Puducherry under the leadership of N Rangasamy". On the other hand, DMK is yet to finalize the deal with the Congress party over the seat-sharing and the reports say that the DMK is mulling to contest the polls independently. BJP's deal with NR Congress has come when the latter had been speculated that it may drift the alliance and join the Congress party. 

Initially, BJP and NR Congress observed deadlock in finalizing the alliance, and last week, Puducherry Congress Chief Subramanian had openly made an offer to the NR Congress to form an alliance with DMK, VCK, and other parties. However, NR Congress didn't give any assurance to the Congress party and kept negotiating with the BJP. After multiple rounds of talks, NR Congress had inked a deal with the BJP- ADMK alliance and Rangasamy has been named as the Chief Ministerial candidate for the alliance. As PMK wasn't offered a place in the alliance, it has now decided to contest independently.