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Jaya to contest from two seats

AIADMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha will contest from two constituencies in the assembly elections in the state.

According to the AIADMK list announced just an hour before its rival, the ruling DMK announced its much-publicised list, Jayalalitha will contest from Andipatti in Madurai district and Krishnagiri in Dharmapuri district.

Both districts were AIADMK strongholds before an upset in the 1996 polls, when Jayalalitha herself was defeated in Bargur constituency, which has now gone to former Union minister M Thambidurai. Andipatti had returned the AIADMK founder, the late M G Ramachandran by a massive margin, when in the party’s maiden general elections of 1977, even though he was hard-pressed for time to campaign for himself.

This is the first time in Tamil Nadu that a chief ministerial aspirant is contesting in more than one constituency. Jayalalitha’s decision to contest two seats assumes significance in the light of the disqualification threat facing her nominations. With the Madras High Court leaving it for the Election Commission to decide, conflicting decisions by the returning officers concerned, would mean that the poll panel itself may have to intervene in the case.

Otherwise, the AIADMK list has the former state minister, D Jayakumar, contesting his native Royapuram seat in Madras city, and the party’s women’s wing leader, Sulochana Sampath, in turn the mother of the state Congress president, E V K S Elangovan, from T Nagar.

Sulochana had come down heavily on her son, when the latter crossed swords with Jayalalitha on the desirability of a Congress-AIADMK combine, first, and on the issue of coalition government, later.

The AIADMK has also nominated the Rajya Sabha member, Thalavai Sundaram, from his native Kanyakumari constituency, and Manoj Pandian, son of the parliamentary party leader, P H Pandian, in the latter’s Cheranmahadevi.

Jayalalitha has nominated one-time state BJP vice-president Dr S Maithreyan, from Mylapore seat in Madras, while former PMK minister at the Centre, Dalit Ezhilmalai, has been nominated as AIADMK candidate for the Tiruchi Lok Sabha by-elections, against BJP nominee M N Sukumaran Nambiar.

Simultaneously, the AIADMK has fielded Inbathamizhan, the estranged son of controversial party legislator, R Thamaraikani, for the latter’s Srivilliputtur constituency. However, DMK State Minister Thamizhkudimagan, who crossed over after his native Elayangudi seat was allotted to an alliance partner, has not been given an AIADMK ticket.

PTI adds: The AIADMK also announced that it will contest 20 of 30 seats in the Union territory of Pondicherry.

Jayalalitha had already allotted 10 seats to her foe-turned-friend PMK.

No seats had been earmarked for the TMC-Congress combine.

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