Khushboo takes on N. Ezhilan and Vanathi challenges Kamal Haasan
The BJP announced a list of 17 candidates for the Tamil Nadu Assembly poll to be held on April 6. The party had been allotted 20 seats by the AIADMK.
Hours after DMK MLA from Thiruparankundram, P. Saravanan, joined the BJP, the national party rewarded him with a ticket to contest the Assembly poll from the Madurai North constituency.
Mr. Saravanan had been elected to the State Assembly in a by-election.
He was denied a ticket by the DMK this time around.
Mr. Saravanan is the second DMK MLA to switch to the BJP.
Earlier, Thousand Lights MLA Ku. Ka. Selvam had joined the BJP but the seat has now been given to actor-politician Khushboo.
BJP Tamil Nadu president L. Murugan said Mr. Selvam did not want to contest.
As per the list announced by the BJP, Mr. Murugan will contest from Dharapuram (Reserved) constituency.
He will be contesting against the DMK’s Kayalvizhi Selvaraj.
Vanathi Srinivasan has been named as candidate for Coimbatore South, where she will be facing off against actor-politician Kamal Haasan and Congress’ Mayura Jayakumar.
Khushboo, who had been campaigning hard at Chepauk-Triplicane as the party’s election in-charge of the constituency, will be taking on N. Ezhilan, a physician, of the DMK at Thousand Lights constituency.
Nainar Nagendran, who had already filed his nomination two days back for the Tirunelveli seat has been allotted the constituency where he will be up against the DMK’s Lakshmanan. Former IPS officer K. Annamalai is being fielded at Aravakurichi against the DMK’s R. Elango.
Vinoj P. Selvam will contest at Harbour constituency, Thanigavelu at Tiruvannamalai, former MLA Kalivarathan at Thirukovilur, C.K. Saraswathi at Modakurichi, D. Periyasamy at Thittakudi (Reserved), Poondi S. Venkatesan at Thiruvayaru, H. Raja at Karaikudi, G. Pandurangan at Virudhunagar, D. Kuppuram at Ramanathapuram, M.R. Gandhi at Nagercoil and P. Ramesh at Colachel.
Candidates for three seats — Thali, Udhagamandalam and Vilavangode — are yet to be announced.