In an interesting move, the Bharatiya Janatha Party has given a ticket to multi-faceted film personality Gangai Amaran, the brother of Music Maestro Ilaiyaraaja and the father of filmmaker Venkat Prabhu, for the by-election of RK Nagar constituency. With this development, the RK Nagar by-poll is likely to be a five-way battle for the prestigious constituency, which is vacant after the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
The BJP on Friday, March 17, announced that Gangai Amaran would be its choice in the by-poll. Initially, it was reported that Tamilisai Soundararajan, the president of BJP's state unit, was the front-runner to contest the election on the saffron ticket, but she denied it and claimed that MN Raja was the only other candidate whom the party considered as he had contested from this consistency in 2016.
"He is someone who was directly affected by Mr. Dinakaran's family. This election will be a gamechanger. The BJP will not compromise," Tamilisai Soundararajan said, while talking about Gangai Amaran, who joined the BJP in 2014.
Gangai Amaran had accused Sasikala's family of grabbing 22 acres of land, which belonged to him, at Payyanoor in 1994.
Coming to other contestants, the by-election marks the debut of J Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa Jayakumar and TTV Dinakaran, the nephew of Sasikala, who is serving a four-year imprisonment in Bengaluru in connection with the disproportionate asset case. O Panneerselvam has fielded E Madhusudhan, while the DMK has named N Maruthuganesh as its candidate.
The by-election will be held on April 12.
