"When there was a patch up formula with him (Karunakaran) during the May 2004 general election, the people in Kerala rejected that temporary truce and we lost badly," Chandy told reporters here.

Karunakran, a former Congress chief minister, split from the party in May last year to float his new political outfit, Democratic Indira Congress-Karunakaran.

However, Karunakaran is now making attempts for an alliance with the Congress after the main opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in Kerala rebuffed his attempts for a tie-up for the April-May polls.

Several rounds of talks have been held between the two parties to forge a seat-sharing arrangement but have so far not been successful.

The Congress is understood to have told Karunakaran that he would be given 15 seats on the condition that his candidates would contest under the party symbol, which was not acceptable to the veteran, who announced that his party would go it alone.

Against this background a meeting of the DIC-K Wednesday again postponed taking a final decision on the proposed tie-up with the UDF.

"It is for them to come up with a plan... we decided that we will make the final announcement tomorrow," said Karunakaran's son K. Muraleedharan.