In what has become a shocking development ahead of the assembly polls, the friends of ADMK have now turned into foes and extended support to DMK after quitting the alliance of the state ruling party. The development has come when the ADMK party has been witnessing an intra-party tussle over the seat-sharing and finalizing the constituencies for the polls. 

Mukkulathor Pulipadai founded by actor-turned-politician Karunas and Manithaneya Jananaayaga Katchi led by Thamimum Ansari had announced that they quitted from the ADMK alliance and knocked on the doors of the DMK party, which had pushed the state opposition party to accommodate these two parties in its over-flowing alliance. DMK has ten parties in its coalition and the party's leadership is in talks with the other parties over seat-sharing. 

While the DMK had inked a deal over seat-sharing with most of the parties including Congress, Karunas and Ansari had expressed their wishes to join DMK. It has been expected that both parties will demand at least two seats each from DMK. As the state is four days ahead of commencing the process of filing the nomination papers for the assembly polls, the DMK hasn't given any assurance to both the parties over inducting them to the alliance.

According to reports, Karunas and Thamimum Ansari had written to DMK leader RS Bharathi saying that their parties will support DMK.  Both the parties have initiated talks to join DMK to contest in the assembly polls. Both the parties had observed alliance with ADMK since 2016 and they had contested in the last assembly polls in ADMK's 'Two leaves' symbol. They had inked the deal with ADMK when the party was led by late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. 

Last Saturday, Karunas announced that his party has exited from the ADMK alliance. He said that the current ADMK leadership had ignored his party because he was introduced by VK Sasikala and his party is not in the position to dole seats from the ADMK. Karunas had asserted that his party will work to defeat ADMK in the upcoming polls. Following his exit, Thamimum Ansari had also decided to quit ADMK's alliance and they both were mulling to support ADMK's rival. 

On Monday, Karunas and Thamimum Ansari had written to DMK to induct into the alliance. It has been expected that these two parties will demand at least two seats from DMK and they will be contesting in DMK's Rising Sun symbol. The DMK has been planning to contest in 180- 190 seats out of 234 seats and the rest 44 seats were reserved for the allied parties. The DMK had sealed a deal with the Congress party by offering 25 seats while the communist parties were given 12 seats. 

Vaiko's MDMK will be contesting in six seats in DMK's 'Rising Sun' symbol and some other parties will also be partially contesting in DMK's symbol. Earlier, Sarathkumar's Sammathuva Makkal Katchi (SMK) which observed ties with ADMK had quitted the alliance of the ruling party and joined Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam. Following SMK, Karunas and Ansari had now left the ADMK alliance and has planned to support DMK. Let's take a look at the election schedule in Tamil Nadu. 

• Single-phase election for all the 234 constituencies
• Issue of Notification - March 12th, 2021.
• Last date of nomination - March 19th, 2021.
• Last date of scrutiny - March 20th, 2021.
• Last date for withdrawing nomination - March 22nd, 2021
• Date of Election - April 6th, 2021. 
• Date of counting - May 2nd, 2021, during which the winner will be declared.