The AIADMK on Wednesday announced the two candidates the party is fielding for the Vikravandi and Nanguneri bye-elections.
MR Muthamizhselvan, the Panchayat union secretary in Kanai, has been chosen as the party’s candidate for the Vikravandi assembly seat, while Reddiarpatti V Narayanan has been chosen for Nanguneri. The latter is the Tirunelveli rural district MGR Mandram joint secretary.
Announcing the names of the two on Wednesday, party co-ordinator O Panneerselvam and joint-coordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami said that the two candidates are AIADMK’s official nominees for the upcoming bye-elections. According to reports, both EPS and OPS had interviewed shortlisted candidates who had expressed an interest in contesting the bye-polls before zeroing in on the two names.
Bye-elections in Nanguneri Assembly constituency are being held as the seat fell vacant after sitting MLA H Vasanthakumar of the Congress party was elected as MP from the Kanyakumari constituency. In Vikravandi, bye-elections are being held due to the death DMK MLA K Radhamani.
In 2016, the AIADMK has lost both the seats to DMK and Congress candidates. Sources within the ruling party told TNM that this bye-elections, the focus would be on Vikravandi where the party is believed to have a good shot at winning.
Apart from the two assembly seats in TN, bye-elections are also being held in the Kamaraj Nagar assembly constituency in Puducherry, where V Vaithialingam of the Congress party resigned from the post after he was elected as MP from Puducherry constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
On Tuesday, DMK President MK Stalin announced its Villupuram district unit treasurer as candidate in Vikravandi. The DMK-Congress alliance will field a DMK candidate from Vikravandi and a Congress candidate from Nanguneri. Congress will also contest in the Kamaraj Nagar constituency in Puducherry. All 3 constituencies will go to polls on October 21.
While the bye-elections will see tough competition from the ruling AIADMK and DMK, other parties such as Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam and TTV Dhinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam have refrained from contesting this bye-elections.
While Kamal declared that his party was focusing on forming a government in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, TTV Dhinakaran in a press meet in Bengaluru said that AMMK would only contest elections after the Election Commission assigns them an official party symbol.
Both parties had also not contested the Vellore Lok Sabha elections which was held in August 2019.
Also read: DMK’s Villupuram treasurer N Pugazhendhi is candidate for Vikravandi bye-poll
Source: The News Minute