Chennai: With five senior leaders keen on testing their electoral prospects in the R. K. Nagar Assembly by-poll and a majority of the cadres desiring party president Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan to contest from this prestigious constituency, the BJP is yet to decide on its candidate.
The party seniors: Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan, MP L. Ganesan, national secretary H. Raja besides Dr. Tamilisai discussed the party’s prospects in contesting the by-election, here, on Saturday.
The leaders, according to sources, weighed the pros and cons of contesting the election and avoiding it to concentrate on the Lok Sabha elections. The decision on contesting will be finalised soon.
“We will have a ‘star’ candidate to represent our party in the by-election,” Dr. Tamilisai replied when asked if the BJP would field ‘film star’ candidate as it had done earlier this year. During the April by-election, the BJP had fielded popular film music director and lyricist Gangai Amaran.
The by-election was later cancelled by the Election Commission of India due to allegations of bribing the voters.
Apart from Gangai Amaran, the names of senior: M. N. Raja who had unsuccessfully contested in the R. K. Nagar Assembly constituency, Karu Nagarajan and Krishna Kumar, is doing the rounds, for the Dec. 21 election.
Also, the supporters of Dr Tamilisai want her to contest and tilt the scales in favour of the BJP.
