Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Loyalists rewarded in Madurai district

S. Annamalai

Two new faces figure in the list of AIADMK candidates Five of the eight sitting MLAs are left out

MADURAI : The list of candidates of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), contesting seven Assembly seats in Madurai district, contains two new faces.

Five of the eight sitting MLAs do not find their names in the list.

While the high command has rewarded its loyalists, notable among those who have been left out are former Minister Valarmathi Jabaraj, former district secretary V. N. Rajangam and M. A. Hakeem, who was elected from Madurai Central in the Tamil Manila Congress ticket.

The new faces are I. Mahendran, joint secretary of Madurai rural district Jayalalithaa Peravai, who has been nominated for Usilampatti, and P. Lakshmi, joint secretary of urban district unit, for Melur.

Defector gets seat

Former United Communist Party of India MLA S.V. Shanmugam, who defected to the AIADMK in 1996, has been given Madurai West, from where he won in 1991. Ms. Jabaraj, who defeated the former Assembly Speaker, P. T. R. Palanviel Rajan, in this constituency in 2001 by a margin of 708 votes, finds herself sidelined.

Interestingly, Mr. Hakeem, who did not go along with the TMC during its merger with the Congress but chose to support Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and later joined the AIADMK, is also not in the list of contestants. He defeated Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam nominee S. Paulraj by a slender margin of 147 votes contesting on behalf of a multi-party alliance in Madurai Central in the 2001 election.

The other sitting MLAs left out of the list are V. N. Rajangam (Sholavandan), former district secretary S. M. Seenivel (Tirupparankundram) and P. Ponnambalam (Samayanallur).

Assembly Speaker K. Kalimuthu has been shifted from Tirumangalam to Madurai Central.

The AIADMK has allotted Tirumangalam to Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, where the party general secretary Vaiko was arrested under POTA for his "pro-LTTE" speech.

Another loyalist, general secretary of All India Forward Bloc faction L. Santhanam has been given Sholavandan, though, initially, he was meant for Madurai Central. He will contest in the `two leaves' symbol.

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