Awwal 30, 1432 H/March 5, 2011, SPA -- A key coalition partner of India's United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government announced Saturday it was pulling out after talks on sharing seats for a regional election broke down. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a party based in southern Tamil Nadu state, said in a statement that its ministers would quit but the party would continue to extend issue-based support to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's minority government, dpa reported. The DMK issued the statement after seat-sharing talks with Singh's Congress Party for elections to the Tamil Nadu state legislature broke down. The elections are scheduled to be held in April. The Congress Party is the leading partner in the UPA which has a thin majority of 272 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha or lower house of Parliament. The DMK and the Trinamool Congress, another regional party from the eastern state of West Bengal, are key alliance partners.
