CPM picks Venkatesan as nominee for Madurai again

CHENNAI: CPM on Friday named its sitting MP and writer Su Venkatesan and R Sachithanantham as candidates for Madurai and Dindigul constituencies respectively. The party has been allotted Madurai and Dindigul LS seats as part of the DMK-led alliance in the State.

In the 2019 LS polls, the Marxist party was allotted Madurai and Coimbatore LS seats. However, DMK has replaced CPM’s sitting Coimbatore seat with a Dindigul seat. Venkatesan, who is a Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer, is a member of CPM’s state secretariat.

He was a staunch critic of the ruling BJP government at the Centre by exposing their imposition of the Hindi and biased recruitment process. He also raised issues of less allocation of funds for the State railway projects.

Sachithanantham, the party’s Dindigul district secretary, has offered over three decades of dedicated service to the party and has been championing the cause of the farmers, CPM State secretary Balakrishnan told reporters after the party’s state committee meeting here to finalise the candidates.

Responding to a question, Balakrishnan said his party has already begun the poll campaign and that the party’s national leaders would soon hit the campaign trail to garner votes for the INDIA bloc candidates.

“We explain to voters the need for defeating the BJP and the AIADMK in the ensuing polls,” he said. On the question of funds got by INDIA alliance parties including DMK from the electoral bonds, he said that BJP which introduced the electoral bond, and other parties who have received such funds should not be treated as same.

Meanwhile, CPI has convened its State council meeting on March 17 and 18 to finalise candidates for Tirupur and Nagapattinam.

The meeting will be attended by party general secretary D Raja.

Both Tirupur and Nagapattinam are sitting seats of the CPI represented by K Subbarayan and M Selvarasu respectively.