The Nilgiris : After the announcement by the Chief Election Commissioner on poll dates on Sunday, all political parties have geared up for final talks with their alliance partners on seat-sharing.
The Nilgiris : After the announcement by the Chief Election Commissioner on poll dates on Sunday, all political parties have geared up for final talks with their alliance partners on seat-sharing.
Though a majority of the parties have revealed the seat sharing numbers, suspense still continues on the allotment of constituencies. In Tamil Nadu, the grand alliance between AIADMK and BJP has secured the national party just 5 seats. However, to the contrary, Congress has secured 10 seats in their alliance with DMK.
More than numbers, the BJP seems to be focused on winning, say top party members. Even political experts opine that the DMK has wasted an excess of five seats to the Congress, since both BJP and Congress do not have a stake in Tamil Nadu. While it is expected that the constituencies might be announced by Wednesday, wild speculations are rife on social media.
Lotus to bloom in the Nilgiris?
According to reliable sources, BJP does not look too keen to contest the VadaChennai seat, but instead considering the Nilgiris as their fifth constituency.
The other constituencies and the candidates for the AIADMK-BJP alliance according to unconfirmed reports are Sivagangai - H. Raja, Thoothukudi - Tamilisai Sounderrajan and Kanyakumari - Pon Radhakrishnan. The fourth constituency could be Coimbatore in which there seems to be a tough choice between veteran politician C P Radhakrishnan and a relatively new face Professor Kanagasabapathy, with a slim chance for Vanathi Sreenivasan.
In this scenario, the fifth constituency, as per party sources could likely be the 'Queen of Hills.' Since 2009, the Nilgiris has always been a reserved constituency for SC/ST. In 2014 elections, A. Raja of DMK secured 39.58 percent of votes against C. Gopalakrishnan of AIADMK who won with a 49.7 percent vote share.
Prospective candidates
This time round, the BJP is considering two candidates who are lawyers to contest in the Nilgiris. D Gangappa, a retired I.A.S. officer who has served in Vellore and Tanjore as District Collector is known for his daring attitude. Gangappa had quit administrative services and joined politics in 1984. He stood as an independent candidate in Vellore during the 1984 parliamentary elections and secured third place after A C Shanmugam of the then ADMK and A M Ramal of DMK. Hailing from Karnataka, Gangappa had contested in Chikkodi parliamentary constituency, Karnataka, in 1991 and Madhugiri in Karnataka during the Assembly elections in 1994. According to party sources, 79-year old, Gangappa, a Kannadiga seems to resonate well with the native Badaga community and could put up a tough fight for A Raja, the possible DMK candidate.
The other candidate in Nilgiris who is under consideration is L Murugan, currently the Vice Chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes. Murugan, the 42-year-old, lawyer contested in 2011 at Rasipuram during the Assembly elections. He secured third position with P Dhanapal (AIADMK) and Duraisamy (DMK) securing the first and second places.
"The BJP is expected to announce their candidates in a couple of days and the newly added 'Nilgiris' constituency could just turn out to be a surprise for many," revealed the source.