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BJP blitz for TN polls
BJP announced a high voltage election campaign of its central leaders before LS elections in Tamil Nadu on May 10.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced a high voltage election campaign of its central leaders before elections in Tamil Nadu on May 10.
The star campaigner of the BJP-AIADMK combine will be Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who will be in Chennai on May 5 to canvass with his alliance partner, Chief Minister J Jayalalitha.
Giving more details, party secretary L Ganesan said Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani will be in the union territory of Pondicherry on May 7. He will campaign in the Chidambaram constituency in the state on the same day.
But before them will arrive party president M Venkaiah Naidu, who will campaign in Coimbatore and Nilgiris on April 24 and at Nagercoil on April 26 -- three seats where the party takes on the Democratic Progressive Alliance, led by the DMK-Congress combine.
On April 28, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is seen as being close to Jayalalitha, will campaign for his BJP candidate Sukumaran Nambiar in the North Chennai constituency.
Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh will be in Coimbatore on April 29 and at Nilgiris the next day, Ganesan told reporters.
On May 6, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi will be at Dharmapuri and senior leader Sushma Swaraj will campaign at Nagercoil on May 7.
And while the BJP draws up its list of party leaders to campaign in the state, its partner AIADMK has interestingly not yet begun the process of filing nominations for the 39 Lok Sabha, lower house of parliament, constituencies.
Filing of nominations began here last Friday but not a single AIADMK candidate has come forward so far as Jayalalitha is waiting for the auspicious time.
Sources said she wants all her party candidates to file nominations at the most sacred time in the week, all together, all at the same time, same day.
That would probably be in the next couple of days, sources said.
April 23 is the last day for filing nominations.
However, the AIADMK's poll partner BJP and its political rivals in the DMK and the Congress have begun the process of filing nominations.
The AIADMK is contesting 33 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats here and the BJP six.