Chennai: Taking a lead over other parties, the principal Opposition DMK on Sunday constituted an eight-member committee to prepare the Party’s manifesto for the Tamilnadu Assembly elections due in April-May next year.
DMK general secretary Duraimurugan, in a statement here, said the committee members are : Party Treasurer and DMK Parliamentary Party leader T R Baalu, DMK Lok Sabha MPs A Raja (deputy general secretary) and Kanimozhi, who is also the DMK Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha member and propoganda secretary Trichy N Siva, deputy general secretaries Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan and Anthiyur Selvaraj, Member of Parliament T K S Elangovan and Prof A Ramasamy.
The nine party DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA),which swept the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, winning 38 of the 39 seats in the state, would be facing the Assembly polls with its president M K Stalin as the Chief Ministerial candidate.
The DMK-led front consists of Congress, IUML, MDMK, CPI, CPI(M), VCK, IJK and KDMK.
The ruling AIADMK has announced incumbent Edappadi K Palaniswami as the Chief Ministerial candidate for the elections.
The AIADMK-led Front has BJP, actor Vijayakanth-led DMDK, PMK, NJP, PT and TMC of former Union Minister G K Vasan as its allies.
The DMK-led front might have won the Lok Sabha polls, but this would be first Assembly elections the State would be facing without two stalwarts–former Chief Ministers, charismatic J Jayalalithaa of AIADMK and M Karunanidhi of DMK, who died in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
The elections would be an acid test for both the Dravidian majors.