With the election date on the card and the election schedule in force, the political parties in Tamil Nadu are at the final scene of drama in chalking out the seat-sharing and clubbing the constituencies with the allies parties without any larger tussle and predicaments ahead of the assembly poll, which is the first legislative election for the state since the demise of Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa.

The upcoming assembly polls draw major significance unprecedently over the emergence of multiple fronts and factions. The Election Commission of India had on Friday announced the election date for Tamil Nadu and the state will be going to the polls on April 6 and the results will be announced on May 2, 2021. As the election date is announced, the Model Code of Conduct has come into force. 

With the state is one month away from the elections, Tamil Nadu may witness four to five fronts - ADMK and its alliance, DMK and its alliance, Kamal Haasan- Sarathkumar, Dhinakaran's AMMK, and Seeman's Naam Tamilar. In an unprecedented fashion, DMK has many allies to accommodate in the polls and the party's leadership led by Stalin has been carrying out the talks to equally balance the party's interest and the demands of allied parties.

DMK has already begun its negotiations with the Congress party and it has been expected that most of the parties in the alliance will be contesting in the party's symbol of 'Rising Sun'. According to reports,  the DMK has been aiming to field at least 190 constituencies, about 80% of the total 234 seats in the state. The reports say that the candidates contesting on the rising sun symbol could include allies including VCK, MDMK, and Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi.

The DMK party has been convincing the allied parties that contesting in the rising sun would give them a popular symbol to reach people as all these parties have lost their state-party status and reserved symbols. The Tamil Nadu Opposition party is nearing the final stage of the alliance talks with the Congress party. Recently, the party had held with the Congress in the presence of senior leaders Oommen Chandy and Randeep Surjewala and the reports say that Congress had demanded the DMK to provide 41 seats for the assembly polls. 

However, DMK had initially started the bid with 15 seats and it later increased to 18. Given its latest developments where the Congress MLAs toppled the government in Puducherry, the sources close to the developments say that the DMK can finalize and make up a deal with the Congress party with a maximum of 20 seats and these seats would be likely from some of the districts where Congress has a chance to win like Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Tuticorin. 

The DMK party is not in wish to offer more than 20 seats to Congress and the Tamil Nadu Opposition party is planning to carry on talks with other allies after making the deal on seat-sharing with Congress. DMK may meet fresh challenges in accommodating the alliance as it has been expected that some of the allies in the party would demand seats in double-digit. Currently, DMK  has a plan of providing four seats each to Vaiko's MDMK, Thirumavalavan's VCK, and both the Communist parties while some of the local allied parties will be awarded one seat each. 

The DMK has asked most of the allied parties to contest in its 'Rising Sun' symbol like how they had contended in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Though the allied parties were reluctant, they had finally agreed to contest in DMK's symbol. When the alliance gets baked and finally comes out, the state can expect that DMK will be contesting between 185 to 200 seats, Congress would carry 18-20 seats while the rest of the seats will be allotted for the allied parties. 

In the 2016 assembly polls, DMK had contested in 178 seats and won 89 seats. Congress had contested in 41 seats and won 8 while the Indian Union Muslim League, which was part of DMK Alliance, ha contested in 5 seats and managed to win one seat and apart from these three parties in the DMK-led alliance, the rest of the allied parties had lost the polls. While DMK eyes to contest more seats in the 2021 polls than the preceding election, it has decided to reduce the seats for the allied parties.