Congress leaders start lobbying for constituencies even before seat sharing

Congress whip S Vijayadharani, who has been elected from Vilavancode, has already made her moves to secure Kanniyakumari Lok Sabha seat. She could give H Vasanthakumar, who was the hot favourite for the seat, a run for his money this time, Congress sources said.

In the same breath, one of the spokespersons of TNCC has persuaded former party whip Peter Alphonse to bid for Tirunelveli Lok Sabha seat. If sources in the party were to be believed, AICC senior and former union finance minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti could face competition from former MPs Manick Tagore and Sudarshana Natchiappan for Sivaganga Parliamentary seat. “Both state Congress president KS Alagiri and legislature party leader K Ramasamy are his men. The other contenders could use it to bid for Sivaganga seat,” said a state party functionary requesting anonymity. Immediate past TNCC president Su Thirunavukkarasar seems to be another bigwig vying for a LS seat, in the instant case, Ramanathapuram constituency.

Even newly appointed TNCC chief KS Alagiri’s name has been doing the rounds in Congress circle and that too for Cuddalore seat, which DMK district secretary MRK Panneerselvam wants for his son this time.

Meanwhile, the AICC, which consulted party general secretaries and think tanks in the capital on Thursday, has summoned all state Congress presidents and legislature party leaders for a meeting in New Delhi on Saturday to chalk out its poll plan.

Going by information trickling out of Sathyamurthy Bhavan, leaders who have been rewarded with posts, mainly the president and working presidents, could be denied tickets this time. A Congress source who did not wish to be named said, “Leaders who were given posts were told that they will not be given tickets this time. So, even if one or two manage to get ticket, it should be the highly influential ones.” Curiously, ally leader DMK would also have a say in the choice of candidate in the state Congress. “The DMK is showing extraordinary interest in ascertaining the spending capacity of Congress candidates. They (DMK) have already made official inquiries with us about the wherewithal of probable candidates. The DMK has informally asked us to share the list of probable candidates,” the source added.