Former Governor Soundarajan, L Murugan, Annamalai Among BJP's Big Guns In 3rd List of Candidates

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday finalised the seat-sharing in Tamil Nadu and released its third list of 9 candidates from the southern state for the Lok Sabha elections. Former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who resigned from the post on Monday, has been fielded from Chennai South.

The BJP will fight Lok Sabha polls from 20 seats in Tamil Nadu.

Other big names on the list include L Murugan, who will contest from Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai from Coimbatore, and Pon Radhakrishnan from Kanyakumari.

Tamilisai Soundararajan, who has been pitted from Chennai South, resigned from the post of Telangana Governor and Puducherry Lieutenant-Governor on Monday to contest the Lok Sabha polls. The 62-year-old BJP leader contested the Lok Sabha election in 2019 from Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi seat, which the ruling DMK’s Kanimozhi currently holds.

Tamilisai expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president JP Nadda for her Lok Sabha candidature from Chennai South.

“I thank our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and national president (JP Nadda) for giving me this opportunity. The mood of the people is electrified toward the lotus (BJP party symbol). The connection he (PM Modi) has with the people of Tamil Nadu is laudable…” she said.

BJP Finalises Seat-sharing in Tamil Nadu

Earlier in the day, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) finalised the seat-sharing for the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu. Of the 39 seats, BJP will contest on 20 leaving 19 to its allies.

Additionally, a few allies of the BJP will contest with the party’s ‘Lotus’ symbol in four constituencies.

Of the 19, three seats have been allotted to GK Vasan’s Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar). The BJP had already allocated 10 seats for the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and two seats for the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK).

Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai said the seat-sharing discussions for all the constituencies in the state concluded smoothly. “All the NDA parties have come together on a common platform for change and to give a larger mandate to Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Annamalai said while talking to reporters in Chennai, according to The Hindu report.

BJP’s List of Lok Sabha Candidates So Far

On March 2, the Saffron party had released its first list of 195 candidates announcing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi for a third time. The party had released a second list of 75 candidates which featured 11 Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Anurag Singh Thakur and Pralhad Joshi. on March 13.

The list also saw Union Minister Piyush Goyal’s debut as he will contest the Lok Sabha election for the first time from Mumbai North. The Saffron Party declared 20 candidates from Maharashtra in the second list including some big names like Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who has been pitted from Nagpur, Pankaja Munde from Beed and Mihir Kotecha from Mumbai North East.

In the first list, candidates for 51 seats from Uttar Pradesh, 20 from West Bengal, 24 from Madhya Pradesh, 15 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, 12 from Kerala, 9 seats from Telangana, 11 from Assam, 11 each from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, five from Delhi, two from Jammu and Kashmir, three from Uttarakhand, two from Arunachal Pradesh and one each from Goa, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar, and Daman and Diu were announced.