CPI Leader Sitaram Yechury Meets DMK Chief MK Stalin, to Contest Upcoming Tamil Nadu Elections Together

Yechury met DMK leader MK Stalin met the latter at his residence in Chennai.

New Delhi: Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) will contest upcoming elections together, said CPI (M) chief Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday. Yechury met DMK leader MK Stalin met the latter at his residence in Chennai.

After the meeting, Yechury said that CPI (M) will ally with the DMK. “Alliances will always take place at the state level first. On that basis, a national alliance will take shape. We will be with the DMK in TN in the upcoming elections. We are together on the issue of saving the unity, integrity, and harmony of the people of India and the country’s constitutional institutions,” Yechury said.

We have decided today that in Tamil Nadu we will be with the DMK in the forthcoming elections. We are together on the issue of saving the unity, integrity and harmony of the people of India and the country's constitutional institutions: CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury in Chennai pic.twitter.com/NpzlAGf2eq

— ANI (@ANI) November 13, 2018

Yechury also said that all secular-minded parties to come together, saying “we have a common objective”.

The development comes three days after Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu met Stalin as part of his efforts to form a grand alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Chandrababu Naidu has already met former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and Karnataka CM H D Kumaraswamy, besides Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.

“This is broadly anti-BJP platform. This is in the interest of the nation. Save democracy, save the nation and save the institutions..that is the agenda. That is the national agenda, an utmost important agenda,” Naidu had said. Naidu had also said that he would meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on 19 or 20 November.