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Sons of soil from national parties battle it out in Sivaganga
The Sivaganga constituency will witness an intense battle in the April 18 Lok Sabha election in the state, between Congress candidate Karti Chidambaram and BJP candidate H Raja, both native to Sivaganga.
By
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Chennai
The constituency, with the total voters of 15.29 lakh, is one of the strongholds of Congress party. The national party had won seven times. DMK, AIADMK and Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) had won twice in the constituency.
Interestingly, former union minister P Chidambaram had won seven times from the constituency, not just in Congress but twice when he was in the TMC too. The constituency has six assembly components and out of the six four were won by the DMK alliance in 2016 state Assembly elections.
The remaining two constituencies were won by the AIADMK in 2016. But, after Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) was formed, Manamadurai MLA Mariappan Kennedy switched to the new party and hence was disqualified.
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the Congress contested alone, Karti Chidambaram represented the party, but he came fourth behind H Raja, who contested in an alliance with the DMDK, MDMK, PMK and other minor parties. Congress had once again given the seat to Karti Chidambaram.
Being son of union minister Chidambaram, Karti wields considerable influence in the constituency and in the election campaign, he is adopting novel measures to attract voters, especially women voters.
On the other hand, H Raja, National Secretary of BJP, too is a well-known face in the constituency. Known for his controversial speeches, Raja obtained 1.33 lakh votes, in the previous Lok Sabha elections and came third.
Raja sounds confidence, on the arithmetic of votes as in the election campaign, he said, “In the previous elections, the AIADMK obtained more than 4.75 lakh votes and when my 1.33 lakh votes are combined I will get more than 6 lakh votes.”
The AMMK has fielded V Pandi, a former local AIADMK functionary and actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s party Makkal Needhi Maiam has fielded Tamil lyricist Snehan in the constituency.
Karti Chidambaram
Son of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, is contesting in the Sivaganga Lok Sabha constituency for second time in a row. He is well known among the local residents as he had campaigned for his father, who had won seven times from the constituency nurtured by him. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he contested in the Sivaganga seat when the Congress contested alone. He finished fourth polling 1.04
lakh votes.
H Raja
The national secretary of the BJP from Tamil Nadu is known for his controversial speeches. He is in-charge of Kerala too. In his six attempts in the state assembly and the Lok Sabha elections, he had won once from the Karaikudi Assembly seat in 2001 when his party aligned with the DMK. He had contested unsuccessfully from Sivaganga Lok Sabha seat twice in 1999 and 2014 polling 2.22 lakh and 1.33 lakh votes
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