National Parties Confused, Delaying Candidates List
The top honchos of the Congress in New Delhi are also caught in the horns of a dilemma as they were facing criticism from other party leaders from the State.
Chennai: Unable to tackle the internal wrangling and increased demands for seats from electoral aspirants, both the top national parties, the Congress and BJP, are delaying the release of the list of candidates for the April 23 Assembly elections in the State, triggering anxiety among the local leaders over catching up the deadline of April 6 for filing nominations.
The Congress party that had been putting pressure on DMK, the leader of the Secular Progressive Alliance, for finalizing the seat sharing process more than a month in advance has been struggling to pick the candidates for the 28 constituencies that were earmarked to them with most of the aspirants who did not make it to the list trooping to New Delhi to besiege the AICC headquarters with their demands.
Similarly, the BJP that wrested 27 seats from the AIADMK was also unable to identify candidates for their constituencies despite the party’s election in charge of Tamil Nadu, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, holding a core committee meeting of the party honchos in Chennai on Tuesday with former State president K Annamalai, who had been sulking for some time, attending it.
Annamalai, who did not evince interest in contesting the elections, was campaigning for the BJP in Puducherry when Goyal asked him to come for the meeting at Kamalalayam in Chennai abandoning the campaign. So he took a helicopter from Puducherry and arrived in Chennai for the meeting that was rescheduled for the evening.
It is learnt that Annamalai wanted to contest only from a constituency in western Tamil Nadu and his colleague while incumbent MLA Vanathi Srinivasan was aspiring for the only seat allotted to the BJP in the region had sought it, leaving the party leaders in a dilemma.
The top honchos of the Congress in New Delhi are also caught in the horns of a dilemma as they were facing criticism from other party leaders from the State. First Jothimani, a sitting Lok Sabha member, accused the State-level leaders of ‘selling’ the seats and allotting them to people of their choice without transparency.
She said the candidates were chosen in secret, compromising the interest of the Congress, whose loyal workers were betrayed by handing over the constituencies to those who had done nothing for the party over the years. The State President and the Leader of the Party in the Assembly alone did not make the party, said.
Congress party’s professional wing chairman, Praveen Chakravarty alleged that most of the small number of seats were given to relatives of leaders. He said the party should have resorted to selection through the draw of lots and it was unable to get an adequate number of seats.
Amidst all these criticism from within the party, TNCC president K Selvaperuthagai had gone to Delhi to finalise the list by talking to the top brass, while their alliance partners have already begun their campaign across the States in the constituencies allotted to them
