Lok Sabha election 2019: AIADMK, DMK fight first poll without tallest leaders

The AIADMK swept the polls on the back of J Jayalalithaa’s popularity and won 37 of the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats as the DMK drew a blank in the last election in 2014.

Tamil Nadu will vote on Thursday in an election which will see two alliances, one led by the DMK and the other by the AIADMK, fight each other in a changed political scenario in the southern state. This year the southern parties will fight without their tallest leaders — DMK’s K Karunanidhi died last year and Jayalalithaa passed away in 2016.

Supporters at a BJP rally in Chennai. which goes to polls on April 18. (AFP file p)

The AIADMK swept the polls on the back of J Jayalalithaa’s popularity and won 37 of the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats as the DMK drew a blank in the last election in 2014.

Karunanidhi’s son MK Stalin has taken over the DMK but the scene for the AIADMK is chaotic with many claimants for Jayalalithaa’s legacy, including chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, deputy CM O Panneerselvam and her confidant VK Sasikala’s nephew and rebel AIADMK leader, TTV Dhinakaran.

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The DMK-led alliance comprises the Congress, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchhi (VCK) of Thol Thirumavalavan, Left parties, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) of Vaiko and the Indian Union Muslim League. The DMK is contesting on 20 seats, while the Congress is fighting on nine seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry.

Actor-turned-politician Kamal Hassan announced his MNM will go solo in the Lok Sabha election 2019.

However, AIADMK rebel and nephew of Jayalalithaa’s longtime aide VK Sasikala Dhinakaran will be the big disruptor in Tamil Nadu, which has for long been used to the two-party system. He founded the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) after being expelled from the party and has put up candidates in 38 out of 39 seats.

Stalin has criticised the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for trampling over Tamil Nadu’s rights and self-respect on issues such as dithering on setting up a Cauvery Water Management Board in accordance with the Supreme Court’s 2018 verdict on the river dispute and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical education that Tamils feel is designed to benefit students from northern states. He has also raked up the failure to close down Vedanta’s controversial copper smelter in Thoothukkudi.

Several high-profile leaders are contesting the Lok Sabha election on Thursday as all parties will look to better their tally.

In Sivaganga, a traditional Congress seat, son of senior party leader and former Union finance minister P Chidambaram Karti Chidambaram is fighting the BJP’s national secretary H Raja. Both of them had lost to AIADMK’s Senthilnathan in the last general election.

The AIADMK’s KRS Saravanan is up against DMK’s SR Parthiban in Salem in west Tamil Nadu, another Gounder community stronghold and hometown of chief minister Palaniswami.

In Tamil Nadu, Karur constituency has most number of contestants

In Thoothukudi, DMK’s Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi is fighting the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit chief Tamilisai Sounderrajan. It was the scene of violent anti-Sterlite protests and 13 people were killed in the firing by police in May last year.

In Kanyakumari, the only seat the BJP won in 2014 as part of an alliance with the PMK and DMDK, the central party’s sitting MP and Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan is trying his luck again. Radhakrishnan’s rival in Kanniyakumari is Congress leader and a businessman from the region, H Vasanthakumar.

Read: Will AIADMK get second-time lucky in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore?

The BJP is hoping to win the communally-sensitive Coimbatore, a town on the state’s western border, that its candidate CP Radhakrishnan won in 1998 and 1999. Radhakrishnan is up against the CPI(M)’s PR Natarajan, whose party is fighting as part of the DMK-Congress alliance.

VCK’s Thol Thirumavalavan, who is a part of the DMK-Congress-Left alliance, is fighting from Chidambaram. He is pitted against the ruling AIADMK candidate P Chandrasekar in the reserved seat in the eastern part of the state.

VVR Raj Sathyan of the AIADMK and CPI(M) leader S Venkatesan, a Tamil writer who will be making his political debut in the Lok Sabha election 2019, are contesting from the Madurai Lok Sabha seat.

The PMK leader and former Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss is seeking re-election from the Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency, his party’s citadel. S Senthil Kumar of the DMK will be contesting against Ramadoss.

J Jayavardhan, the son of senior AIADMK leader and the state’s minister for fisheries D Jayakumar is seeking re-election from the Chennai South parliamentary. Sumathi alias Tamilachi Thangapandian of the DMK, who is making her debut in the Lok Sabha election 2019, and the AMMK’s candidate Isakki Subbaiah and MNM’s R Rangarajan are also in the fray.

Arcot Kalanidhi, the son of former state electricity minister Arcot Veerasamy, is also making his electoral debut from the Chennai North Lok Sabha seat this election as the DMK nominee. The head of the DMK’s medical wing will fight against R Mohanraj of Vijayakant’s DMDK as part of the AIADMK-led alliance in the Tamil Nadu capital.

The Chennai Central Lok Sabha seat, the former bastion of the DMK, will see Dayanidhi Maran against the PMK’s candidate Sam Paul in the Chennai Central Lok Sabha seat.

In Puducherry, the Congress candidate V Vaithilingam is up against K Narayanasamy of the All India NR Congress (AINRC). Narayanasamy had defeated Union minister of state V Narayanasamy of the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. It was the first time that a member of a regional party had won the Puducherry Lok Sabha seat.

The results will be declared on May 23

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