Apart from his public statements on the national-level political significance of remaining with the DMK, Chidambaram reportedly influenced the party high command into remaining in the alliance by putting a word with a top AICC leader to stop exploring other options like Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), which openly invited Congress to its alliance.

A Congress source said MNM had opened channels with Rahul Gandhi through ‘friends’ to persuaded him.

While the preliminary talks were going on behind the scene, which irked the DMK, Chidambaram is understood to have asked a member of the Gandhi family to repudiate alternative alliance options in Tamil Nadu, one of the very few states from where non -BJP MPs have decent representation in the Parliament.

He also publicly rejected the idea of a third front in the State.

The involvement of a few State Congress leaders, especially a couple of Parliamentarians, was the cause of the brief acrimony between the two parties, said another Congress source.

An MP from the cracker belt and another from a border district in western Tamil Nadu had given wrong inputs to Rahul Gandhi, leading to confrontation during seat-sharing talks.

Congress sources dismissed reports about ill-treatment of Congress senior Oommen Chandy as inaccurate. The other AICC representative who took part in the first round of negotiation was unimpressed with the DMK top brass not receiving them, which was immediately conveyed to the AICC, causing disharmony, a TN Congress senior told DT Next.

The DMK’s failure to clinch the deal directly with AICC through seniors as was done in the previous polls and the involvement of State Congress leaders causes the avoidable acrimony, the person added.