Constituency Watch: Chennai South to witness triangular contest between senior leaders' relatives of different parties

The Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency is set to witness a three-cornered contest between close relatives of senior leaders of different parties in the upcoming general election. Tamilisai Soundararajan, who recently resigned as Telangana Governor and L-G of Puducherry, will be contesting from Chennai South on a BJP ticket.

Soundararajan, former president of the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is the daughter of Kumari Ananthan, former Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president and ex-MP.

Against her, the INDIA bloc has fielded the sitting MP from Chennai South, Thamizhachi Thangapandian -- a DMK member and sister of Tamil Nadu Finance Minister, Thangam Thenarasu.

AIADMK has named J. Jayavardhan as its nominee from the Chennai South LS seat, making the contest a triangular one.

Jayavardhan is the son of senior AIADMK leader, D. Jayakumar who is party spokesperson, and former Fisheries Minister of Tamil Nadu.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, DMK's Thamizhachi Thangapandian defeated Jayavardhan by a margin of 2,62,223 votes.

In the last general election, the AIADMK was in an alliance with the BJP.

Speaking to IANS, Tamilisai Soundararajan said: "We are confident of victory and the people of Tamil Nadu are eager to vote for the good governance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

She also said that there was a tremendous goodwill for PM Modi and the BJP in Tamil Nadu, adding "this would fetch votes for the party".

Meanwhile, Zacharias Joseph, a political analyst based out of Coimbatore, told IANS: "Chennai South is a bastion of the DMK and sitting MP, Thamizhachi Thangapandian is at an advantage as far as the seat is concerned."

He, however, agreed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been getting good support in the state.