Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief J Jayalalitha changed her party's candidate list again, replacing eight members in the fray with candidates who have already proven themselves. Three ministers and a former Cabinet member have been added to the list.
Tamil Nadu is set to witness assembly elections on May 16, with state-level political parties like the AIADMK, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and People's Welfare Front (PWF) locking horns for 235 seats.
Jayalalitha has fielded candidates who had been left out of the fray. Ministers for Higher Education, Rural Industries and Tourism P Palaniappan, R Mohan and SP Shanmuganathan have been added to the fresh list. They will replace GS Kuppusamy, ASA Rajasekar, and Bhuvaneswaran, respectively.
Palaniappan will contest from Pappireddipatti in the Dharmapuri district, Shanmuganathan from Srivaikuntam and Mohan from Sankarapuram, the Times of India quoted the AIADMK as saying in a press release.
Apart from the three ministers, K Ravi will contest the Arakkonam seat instead of KS Manivannan, while KV Ramalingam has been positioned in Erode West, where earlier R Varadarajan was contesting.
The AIADMK, which had released its first list of Assembly election candidates on April 4, has changed the Trichy East candidate twice. The current AIADMK member being fielded from that seat is VN Natarajan.
Two other changes have been done in Kovilpatti and Palayamkottai. Kadambur Raju will contest from the former while SKA Hyder Ali will contest from the latter.
Jayalalitha is contesting from the RK Nagar constituency again, while state Finance Minister O Panneerselvam will contest the Bodinayakkanur seat and Electricity Minister Natham R Viswanathan will fight for the Athur constituency, the Hindu reported.
