Chennai: TTV Dhinakaran-led Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) yesterday announced its first list of candidates for 24 Lok Sabha seats and nine nominees for the by-elections to Tamilnadu assembly.
The list also includes former minister Isakki Subaya and former mayor Charubala R Thondaiman in South Chennai and Tiruchirappalli Lok Sabha constituencies, respectively.
Subaya who was a Minister in the Jayalalithaa cabinet in 2011, Charubala Thondaiman was a former mayor of Tiruchirappalli Corporation twice beginning 2001. The former Mayor had quit Congress to join former Minister G K Vaasan’s Tamil Maanila Congress in 2014 and about two years ago she switched to the AIADMK. Later she pledged her allegiance to Dhinakaran.
There are 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamilnadu. Single phase polls will be held on 18 April along with bypolls to 18 assembly constituencies.
The disqualification of 18 ruling party MLAs who are loyal to Dhinakaran under the anti-defection law in 2017 led to the vacancy to most of the 18 assembly seats. Folloeing a bitter power struggle in the ruling AIADMK, Dhinakaran formed AMMK after he and his aunt V K Sasikala, close aide of late chief minister Jayalaithaa, were ousted by the party.
The AMMK has fielded nine of the disqualified MLAs from the constituencies from where they had won in the 2016 assembly polls. The constituencies they would be representing are Poonamallee, Perambur, Tiruporur, Gudiyattam, Ambur, Harur, Manamadurai, Sattur and Paramakudi.
The AMMK has also named candidates for the Lok Sabha seats of Tiruvallur, Sriperumbudur, Kanchipuram, Villupuram, Salem, Namakkal, Erode, Tiruppur, Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Pollachi, Karur, Perambalur, Chidambaram, Mayiladuthurai, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Sivaganga, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Thenkasi and Tirunelveli.
Dhinakaran allotted Chennai Central Parliamentary constituency to the party’s ally Social Democratic Party of India.