Coimbatore : Following the announcement of seat-sharing and constituency, the DMK have announced the name of the candidates for the 20 constituency they are about to contest.
Coimbatore : Following the announcement of seat-sharing and constituency, the DMK have announced the name of the candidates for the 20 constituency they are about to contest.
In the Nilgiris, Pollachi and Salem constituencies, DMK and AIADMK will contest directly. A. Raja will contest in the Nilgiris, K.Shanmughasundaram in Pollachi and S.R. Parthiban in Salem.
The announcement was made by M.K. Stalin, President of DMK who announced the name of the contestants in 20 constituencies for the upcoming Parliamentary elections. He also revealed the names of 18 candidates who would be contesting in the 18 assembly by-polls to be held on April 18.
About A. Raja
A. Raja is an advocate by profession and he did his masters from Government Law College in Tiruchirappalli. He was a member of the 15th Lok Sabha representing the Nilgiris constituency of Tamil Nadu and had been elected to house for four times since 1996.
The 56-year-old DMK leader was first elected to Parliament as a member of Lok Sabha in 1996 from the Perambalur constituency and was reelected from the same constituency in 1999 and 2004 elections and from Nilgris constituency in 2009. He was Minister of State for Rural development from 1996 to 2000, Minister of State, Health and Family Welfare from September 2000 to May 2004 and a cabinet minister for Environment and Forests from May 2004 to May 2007. He became the cabinet minister for Communication and Information Technology from May 2007, following the resignation of Dayanidhi Maran. Raja was investigated in the 2G Spectrum case, along with two other members of the DMK, Dayanidhi Maran and Kanimozhi. All three were acquitted in 2017.