Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who is the coordinator of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, has said his party is ready to go alone in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections if other parties decide to do so. He said this in the Assembly, when Congress Legislature Party leader K R Ramasamy alleged that the ruling AIADMK was under the clutches of the BJP-led Union Government and dared it to go alone in the polls.
Responding to him, Panneerselvam, who is also the Leader of the House, said there has been history that the AIADMK has contested the elections on its own. When Ramasamy said that the AIADMK had won because of the popularity of late leader J Jayalalithaa and dared it to go alone, Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar hit out at the Congress and wanted to know on whose back it was riding piggy-back for the polls.
Recently, Jayakumar said just because the AIADMK is receiving applications for all 40 constituencies, it does not mean the party would contest the polls alone. The AIADMK had already announced committees to hold seat sharing talks with alliance partners and to prepare manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The seat sharing team will consist of veterans K P Munusamy, Vaithilingam, JCD Prabhakar and Ministers Thangamani and Velumani.
While the seven-member manifesto team will consist of C Ponnaiyan, Natham Viswanathan, Minister D Jayakumar, Semmalai, Minister C V Shanmugam, Manoj Pandian and Rabi Bernard.
Another seven-member team has been formed to regulate election campaign works. It has Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, Ministers Dindigul Srinivasan and K A Sengottaiyan, B Valarmathi, Gokula Indira, Venugopal and Vaigai Selvan as its members.
