Thanjavur: With Tamil Mannaila Congress (TMC) president G.K. Vasan announcing that his party has been given the Thanjavur Lok Sabha seat in the AIADMK-BJP led alliance in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, this will be the second time when TMC will contest from Thanjavur in the Parliamentary elections.
Last time it contested was in 1999. At that time G.K. Moopanar, founder of the party was alive and TMC contested separately and fielded P.L.A. Chidambaram, an industrialist as its candidate in Thanjavur.
Again TMC has now got a chance to contest from Thanjavur but with AIADMK alliance. The TMC was a poll partner with the AIADMK in 2001 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu. But at that time J.Jayalalithaa, former Chief Minister was alive and the alliance won the elections and AIADMK formed the government.
The TMC will now face a four-cornered contest with AMMK also looking for a suitable candidate to field in the Lok Sabha elections from Thanjavur and Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam has also concluded interviews with probable candidates here.
With DMK president M.K. Stalin also announcing that DMK will contest from Thanjavur, people are expecting as who will be its candidate. Main contenders within the party for the seat are S.S. Palanimanickam, former union minister and five times MP of Thanjavur from 1996 and Mahesh Krishnaswamy, former MLA. Both of them have attended the interviews. In 2014 election, T.R. Baalu, former union minister contested as DMK candidate and lost to K. Parasuraman of AIADMK.
Another interesting feature in Thanjavur this time is that elections to the Assembly constituency will also be held along with the LS elections. The Assembly seat fell vacant as the sitting AIADMK MLA, M Rangasamy, a supporter of T T V Dhinakaran, was disqualified by the Speaker. Rangasamy is now in AMMK.
