Karti Chidambaram, the son of veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram, submitted his nomination for the Sivaganga Lok Sabha seat on Monday.
Karti secured victory from the Sivaganga constituency in 2019 and has been entrusted with the responsibility once more for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, scheduled for April 19th.
“I’m thankful for the Congress party, for reposing faith in me again and allowing me to contest for the third time. I am very grateful to my party leadership… The entire alliance has come together. The three ministers from the DMK, DMK MLA, and Congress MLA were with me,” Karti told ANI after filing nomination.
“The INDIA alliance will overwhelmingly win the Sivaganga seat as it will win every seat in Tamil Nadu. We have workers’ meeting from tomorrow onwards for the next six days and from the 1st March we will start a proper campaign where we’ll reach out to the public,” he added.
Congress unveiled a roster of candidates for seven out of nine seats in Tamil Nadu on Saturday.
The previous week, a press release from the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) unveiled the party’s intention to compete in nine constituencies across Tamil Nadu. These include Thiruvallur (the reserved constituency), Cuddalore, Mayiladuthurai, Sivaganga, Tirunelveli, Krishnagiri, Karur, Virudhunagar, and Kanniyakumari.
Previously, S Vijayadharani, a three-time Congress MLA from Tamil Nadu, dealt a significant blow to the Congress by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the party’s headquarters in the national capital.
Meanwhile, Tamilisai Soundararajan, former Telangana and Puducherry Governor and BJP candidate from South Chennai, submitted her candidature for the Lok Sabha elections. She expressed her resignation from the governor’s post, stating her desire to “work directly for the people of the state.”
“The people want PM Modi to be Prime Minister again. South Chennai is a constituency with very responsible people and they’re longing for a good parliamentarian. The present MP is not very approachable. I will be very approachable. When I was in a constitutional post, I also used to interact with people. I resigned from the governor’s post because I want to work directly for the people,” Soundararajan told ANI on Monday.
DMK candidate Tamilachi Thangapandiyan and AIADMK candidate J Jayavardhan also submitted their nominations for the South Chennai constituency.
All 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will undergo voting in the initial phase of the general elections scheduled for April 19.
During the 2019 general elections, the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, which included the Congress, VCK, MDMK, CPI, CPI(M), IUML, MMK, KMDK, TVK, and AIFB, secured a resounding triumph by winning 38 out of the 39 seats in the state. In the same year, the DMK won 23 Lok Sabha seats with a 33.2 per cent vote share, while the Congress secured 8 seats with a 12.9 per cent vote share, and the CPI claimed two seats in Tamil Nadu.
The election for the 543 Lok Sabha seats across the country will occur in seven phases, commencing on April 19. Vote counting is scheduled for June 4.