Lok Sabha election: BJP releases its list of candidates

CHENNAI: A keen tussle is on the cards in the southern constituency of Thoothukudi between the DMK and the BJP with the saffron party announcing to field its heavyweight Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, State president, to take on Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi who is making a debut in Lok Sabha polls. Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan has been renominated to Kanyakumari constituency.

While the party’s former president C. P. Radhakrishnan will fight from Coimbatore, national secretary H. Raja and former State Minister Nainar Nagendran have been fielded from Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram constituencies, respectively. The list of candidates for the April 18 Lok Sabha election, announced by Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare J P Nadda, who is also the Secretary of the party’s Parliamentary Board, on Thursday evening confirms the names revealed by H Raja on Wednesday.

DC has on March 14 reported that these party seniors would contest from the above constituencies. The BJP has been given five seats in the seat-sharing pact with the AIADMK. All the five leaders are no novices to electoral fray.

Ponnar, as Pon Radhakrishnan is fondly called in the party, had served as the Union Minister of State for Youth affairs and Minister of State for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation in the Vajpayee Cabinet. This lawyer-politician who has remained a bachelor, is the spirit behind the growth of the party in his native Kanyakumari district. This former president of Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP, who was accommodated in the Narendra Modi Cabinet in 2014, had won from Kanyakumari LS constituency by a margin of 1,28,662 votes in 2014. He had unsuccessfully contested in 1991, 1996, 1998, 2004 and 2009. He had won in 1999 and 2014.

On the other hand, Tamilisai, daughter of former TNCC chief Kumari Anandan, is a doctor by profession, and is known for her oratory. This popular television debator who is the first woman president of the saffron party, has unsuccessfully contested two Assembly elections and Parliament elections.

Coir Board chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan was two-time member of the Lok Sabha. He won on BJP ticket in the 1998 and 1999 general elections in the aftermath of the 1998 Coimbatore bombings. He had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 polls.

National secretary H. Raja was elected as MLA from Karaikudi constituency in 2001. In 2006 and 2016 he had unsuccessfully contested from Alandur and
T. Nagar Assembly constituencies. He had also contested the 1999 and 2014 Lok Sabha election from Sivaganga where he would contest again. This chartered accountant is the chairman of Railway Passenger Amenities Committee and under his leadership, thecommittee approved the printing of passenger train tickets in regional languages such as Tamil and Telugu. Raja is a powerful orator and is always adept when it comes to translating the speeches of his party’s national leaders on Tamil Nadu tour. He also has a penchant for getting into controversies.

Interestingly, Nainar Nagendran who quit the AIADMK and joined the BJP in 2017, would have to rub shoulders with his former colleagues when he slugs it out from Ramanathapuram. When in AIADMK he was elected from Tirunelveli Assembly constituency in 2001 and 2011 elections. He lost the seat in 2016 to the DMK.