E-Paper
824 candidates in the fray for May 13 polls in TN
A total of 824 persons, including Union Ministers T R Baalu, E V K S Elangovan and A Raja, are left in the fray for the May 13 Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu with the Election Commission releasing the final list of candidates on Monday.
A total of 824 persons, including Union Ministers T R Baalu, E V K S Elangovan and A Raja, are left in the fray for the May 13 Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu with the Election Commission releasing the final list of candidates on Monday.
According to EC statistics, as many as 107 of the total of 931 valid applicants withdrew their nomination papers on the last day of withdrawal, leaving 824 candidates to fight it out among themselves for a mandate to enter Parliament.
The nomination process had started on April 17 with candidates of AIADMK and its allies, barring Vaiko, filing nominations on April 20. MDMK leader Vaiko filed his papers on April 23.
Other prominent names from the state testing their electoral fortunes are former Union ministers Dayanidhi Maran and R Velu, CPI state secretary D Pandian, BJP state president L Ganesan, actors D Napolean and J K Ritheesh (DMK) and entrepreneur E Sarath Babu among others.
While DMK is contesting 21 seats in Tamil Nadu, its allies Congress (15), VCK (2) and IUML (1) are contesting the rest.
The AIADMK is contesting 23 seats, leaving the rest to PMK (6), MDMK (4) and three each to CPI and CPI(M).
The lone Puducherry seat is being fought out by Congress and PMK in the respective fronts.
South Chennai tops the list with 44 candidates, while Nagapattinam (SC) has the least number of candidates with only seven persons in the fray.
Karur (38) and Central Chennai (37) are the other constituencies with maximum number of candidates.
