TN: BJP's choice of Annamalai and Murugan for Lok Sabha polls aligns with expectations

Chennai, Mar 21 (PTI) The BJP on Thursday naming its Tamil Nadu unit chief K Annamalai as its candidate for the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency and fielding Union Minister L Murugan from The Nilgiris was on expected lines.

Also, the party has nominated former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan from Chennai South Lok Sabha seat and ex-union minister Pon Radhakrishnan from Kanniyakumari, which he represented in 2014.

Here is a brief look about the key BJP candidates.

Annamalai Ever since he took over as state BJP chief in 2021, he has been working aggressively to bring an electoral turnaround for his party in Tamil Nadu. The former IPS officer often became the talking point of political discourse in the state, though it remains to be seen if his party could get translated into votes, its work on the ground to garner support.

Especially, the western region of the state is under sustained focus of the BJP and it has fielded Annamalai from Coimbatore, the hub of the western belt. Presently, Coimbatore is represented by DMK ally CPI (M).

Annamalai will take on DMK's Ganapathi P Rajkumar and AIADMK's Singai G Ramachandran in what is being viewed as a battle of prestige.

L Murugan Union Minister Murugan has all along been focusing on building the party in The Nilgiris and has been working to get support from various sections of people there. For at least a year now, it is an open secret that Murugan would be fielded by the BJP from Nilgiris to take on the incumbent MP, DMK heavyweight, A Raja.

Tamilisai Soundararajan Tamilisai, who unsuccessfully contested against Kanimozhi in Thoothukudi in 2019 LS polls, has been named as its candidate in south Chennai, where the BJP has pockets of influence. Mild-mannered, Tamilisai, is popular among people. She had resigned as Governor of Telangana on March 18.

She has a formidable rival in the articulate, sitting DMK MP, T Sumathy alias Thamizhachi Thangapandian,who has been re-nominated by the ruling party.

Pon Radhakrishnan A former union minister, he was the BJP's lone winning candidate from Tamil Nadu in 2014, from Kanniyakumari as the state overwhelmingly voted for the J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK, which won 37 of the 39 seats that year. The saffron party had put up a spectacular show that year across the country, winning 282 seats.

The senior leader will take on AIADMK's Basilian Nazreth and the Congress, which is yet to name its nominee. The national party wrested the seat from BJP in 2019 and retained it two years later in a bypoll. PTI

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