AIADMK candidate for South Chennai Lok Sabha constituency J Jayavardhan.
| Photo Credit: M. Karunakaran
The AIADMK on March 20 named its first set of 16 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.
J. Jayavardhan, who represented the South Chennai Lok Sabha constituency during 2014-19, and P. Saravanan, who was elected on the DMK ticket from Thiruparankundram Assembly constituency in the 2019 by-election, are fielded from South Chennai and Madurai.
In 2019, Dr. Jayavardhan lost to the DMK’s Thamizhachi Thangapandian by a margin of about 2.5 lakh votes. At the time of the Assembly elections in April-May 2021, Dr Saravanan contested from Madurai North as the BJP nominee and lost to G. Thalapathi of the DMK by nearly 23,000 votes. In August 2022, he quit the BJP — at that time, he had held the post of president of the party’s Madurai district unit. In January 2023, he joined the AIADMK.
Also Read | AIADMK ropes in DMDK, Puthiya Tamizhagam, SDPI; releases first list of candidates
The list included the party nominees for four seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) – E. Rajasekar – Kancheepuram; J. Bagyaraj – Villupuram; M. Chandrakasan – Chidambaram and G. Sursit Sankar – Nagapattinam.
Other candidates are: Royapuram R Mano or R. Manohar – North Chennai; A. L. Vijayan – Arakkonam; V. Jayaprakash – Krishnagiri; G. V. Gajendran – Arani; P. Vignesh – Salem; K. R. L. Thangavel – Karur; S. Tamilmani – Namakkal; Atral Ashokkumar – Erode; V. T. Narayanasamy – Theni and P. Jayaperumal – Ramanathapuram.