Chennai: Taking a lead over other parties, the ruling AIADMK today announced the first list of its candidates to contest in the Assembly elections.
The list has been announced just a day after the AIADMK aspirants were interviewed. The list comprises of names including Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam who are also the joint coordinator and coordinator of the AIADMK respectively and Ministers D Jayakumar and C Ve Shanmugam.
“Panneerselvam will contest from Bodinayakannur, Palaniswami from Edappadi, Jayakumar from Royapuram, Shanmugam for Villupuram, S P Shanmuganathan from Srivaikuntam and S Thenmoli from Nilakottai,” a party release said.
The ruling AIADMK on Thursday began to interview the aspirants who have applied to contest from the party seat.
Palaniswami and Panneerselvam interviewed the candidates. Apart from Palaniswami and Panneerselvam, the interview committee included deputy secretaries K P Munusamy and R Vaithilingam; the medical wing secretary P Venugopal; literary wing secretary B Valarmathi and MGR Mandram secretary Tamilmagan Hussain.
Addressing the aspirants, Palaniswami ured them to extend cooperation to the selected candidates.
Sources said that more than 8,000 candidates have applied to contest on behalf of the party. The marathon interview was held in two rounds and got completed yesterday.
As far as seat sharing is concerned, AIADMK has already allotted 23 seats for PMK.
Meanwhile, senior BJP members today held a meeting regarding the seat sharing talks with AIADMK.