Chennai, Mar 17 (UNI) With just one month away for polling, the Lok Sabha election scenario in Tamil Nadu has picked up momentum and is expected to become more intense with the commencement of the summer season.
The Election Commission of India on Saturday announced single phase polling on April 19 for all the 40 LS seats (39 in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry) and also the bye-election for Vilavancode Assembly seat.
Leading political parties in the State will be grappling with time in finalising the seat sharing with allies and announcing the list of candidates as the filing of nominations will open on March 20.
As per the schedule, March 27 will be the last date for filing of nominations, and the last date for withdrawals is March 30 after scrutiny on March 28.
Polling for all the 40 LS seats and the Vilavancode Assembly seat, which fell vacant following the resignation of 3-time Congress MLA and sitting member S.Vijayadharani who quit the party and the joined the BJP recently, will be held as part of the first phase of the seven-phase polling schedule announced the ECI.
The counting of votes will be taken up on June four.
In all likelihood this year Parliamentary polls will witness a four-cornered contest in the State.
The main contest will be between archrivals, the ruling DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (which is also a key partner in the Opposition-led INDIA bloc at the National level)–which was looking for an encore of the 2019 sweeping in which it had won 39 of the 40 seats–and the principal Opposition AIADMK, which had already snapped its ties with the BJP and walked out of the NDA after aligning with it for five years and is trying to form a formidable alliance.
Others in the fray are the BJP, which, while still nursing ambitions of possible revival of alliance with the AIADMK, is also trying to form a front, and the fourth party in the electoral fray is actor-director Seeman’s Naam Tamizhar Party, which as usual will be contesting the polls alone and has announced the initial list of its candidates.
In all the elections since, 2019 the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) of actor-politician Kamal Haasan has been contesting the polls, but this time it has entered into an alliance with the DMK-Led Front headed by Chief Minister and DMK President M.K.Stalin, with whom the actor shares a close rapport.
While the stand of other parties like the Pattali Makkal Ktchi (PMK), DMDK of late actor-politician Vijayakanth, Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) of former Union Minister G.K.Vasan, ousted AIADMK
leader and former Chief Minister O.Panneerselvam and the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) of TTV Dhinakaran, who is the nephew of V.K.Sasikala, a close aide of late CM and AIADMK Supremo J.Jayalalithaa, was not known.
