Names for Name-Sake

Former TNCC chief Tindivanam Ramamurthy today released the first list of 36 candidates for the forthcoming assembly elections. Interestingly, the party has fielded a candidate in Andipatti against Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Ramamurthy, who was suspended from TNCC for his alleged anti-party activities recently, floated his own party called Tamilnadu Indira Congress (TIC). He also had met Jayalalithaa and was hopeful getting a few seats for his new outfit in the AIADMK combine. Addressing press persons here today, Ramamurthy, said 'I had only expressed my desire to forge an alliance with AIADMK. No formal decision was taken then that we would align with them.' Going further, Ramamurthy said 'I am not worried about AIADMK not allocating seats for our party'. He also announced that the name of his party has been changed to Tamilnadu Jananayaga Congress (TJC) and the party flag would have a tri-colour with the images of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and former Chief Minister Kamaraj. Candidates for the 36 constituencies announced by Tindivanam Ramamurthy include: Park Town (Srinivasa Murthy), Purasaiwalkkam (Geetha), Triplicane (Ice House Thyagu), Villivakkam (Sudhakaran), Chengalpet (N Paramasivam), Tambaram (Akbar), Kanchipuram ( Berry), Vanoor (Thilakavathay Rajan), Cuddalore (Asok Kumar), Kurinijipadi (Krishnamurthy), Katumannar Koil ( Mani), Andipatti (Sivakumar).

Source: News Today

Vijayakanth to contest from Vriddhachalam

Actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth will contest the May 8 Assembly elections from Vriddhachalam constituency in Cuddalore. Announcing this while releasing the first list of 140 candidates of his party Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), Vijayakanth said that the party manifesto would be released in a couple of days and the final list for the remaining 94 seats would be out before April 6. The party would be contesting all the 234 constituencies. The party’s presidium chairman and former minister S Ramachandran would contest from his traditional Panruti constituency. Eighteen women figured in the list. Also included in the list released on Friday were deputy general secretary P Parthasarathy (Thiruvallur), treasurer R Sundararajan (Madurai Central), headquarters T Murugesan (Uthiramerur) and propaganda secretary V C Chandrakumar (Erode). Vijayakanth, who has been targeted by the PMK ever since the run to the founding of his party in September last year, seems to have decided to take the battle to the Vanniar heartland by contesting from Vridhachalam. Vijayakanth also ridiculed the “Rs 2 a kg rice” promise of the DMK, and said that if DMK president M Karunanidhi was sincere about it he could have done so during his term as the Chief Minister. The people, he said, would decide the fate of the freebies like colour television announced in the DMK manifesto and the various promises held out by the ruling AIADMK in its manifesto. Reiterating his party’s resolve to go it alone, he said that he would approach the people highlighting the “evils of both the AIADMK and the DMK.” Vijayakanth claimed that there was a great response to his party among the people, who wanted a change. He hoped that this would be reflected in the voting pattern.

Source: Indian Express