Chennai, Feb 18 (IANS): DMK has agreed to give seven Lok Sabha seats to Congress instead of 16 seats, which the grand-old party had demanded.

The Congress had contested on nine seats in the 2019 general elections by being an alliance partner in the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) led by the DMK.

The party had won eight seats while losing the Theni Lok Sabha seat where O.P. Raveendranathan of AIADMK won the seat by defeating senior Congress leader E.V.K.S. Elangovan.

Sources said that the Congress’ list of candidates was too large and the DMK team led by T.R. Baalu conveyed to the Congress leadership that it can only consider giving no more than seven seats.

Earlier, DMK District Secretaries had conveyed to the party leadership that the Congress must be restricted to a smaller number of seats as it has limited strength on the ground.

Sources said that the Congress state leadership is expecting that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will intervene and ask the DMK Chief to give the party a few more seats.

A senior DMK leader told IANS that the strength of the Congress is minuscule in almost all the constituencies and that even the seven seats they got is more than sufficient.