Tamil Nadu Congress chief KS Alagiri on Sunday said that the party has signed a seat-sharing agreement with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and will contest in 25 Assembly seats, reported ANI. Alagiri also announced that the party will contest the bye-polls to the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat.

Elections to the 234-seat Tamil Nadu Assembly will be held in a single phase on April 6. The results will be announced on May 2. Besides the Congress, the alliance includes two Communist parties, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, the Indian Union Muslim League and the Manithaneya Makkal Katchi.

On Sunday, Alagiri called the “spread” of the Bhartiya Janata Party worse than the coronavirus, saying that a secular plank was needed to prevent it, according to The Times of India. “Hence, there is a need for all secular forces to join hands,” he added.

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Congress in charge of Tamil Nadu Dinesh Gundu Rao expressed confidence that the Congress-DMK alliance will sweep the elections as he criticised the BJP. “BJP by entering into an alliance with AIADMK, its intention is to finish off AIADMK,” he said. “They want to kill all Opposition parties and have “one party-one man rule” in the country.”

The DMK had earlier offered the Congress 18 seats, down from 41 it was given in the 2016 Assembly elections. The MK Stalin-led party had cited the expansion of the coalition from 2016 for its inability to give the Congress more seats. The Congress, however, wanted 30 seats.

The DMK has signed a deal for six seats with the Communist Party of India but is yet to finalise a seat-sharing agreement with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

On Friday, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had inked a seat-sharing agreement with the Bharatiya Janata Party, allotting its ally 20 Assembly seats for the upcoming polls.