OPS announces Senthilmurugan as Erode East by-poll candidate

CHENNAI: The prolonged suspense over the AIADMK candidates came to an end on Wednesday as former chief minister and AIADMK interim general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) and ousted party leader O Panneerselvam (OPS) have announced their respective factional candidates for the by-elections to Erode east constituency.

Accordingly, EPS said that former AIADMK legislator K S Thennarasu will contest the by-polls while the OPS camp announced B Senthil Murugan as their candidate.

Earlier, EPS, in a statement, said following the decision taken by the AIADMK poll panel, Thennarasu will be the candidate for the by-polls. AIADMK sources said that Palaniswami had chosen Thennarasu to contest the by-poll came against the backdrop of his experience in the party.

Accordingly, Thennarasu, who had held several posts in the AIADMK had also successfully contested Erode East assembly election twice in 2001 and 2011 respectively. However, Thennarasu could not contest the 2021 assembly election in Erode since his party gave the seat to the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), which was a part of the AIADMK alliance.

However, Palaniswami had sought permission from the TMC president G K Vasan that he would field a candidate from his faction to contest the by-poll for Erode East, which was necessitated after the sitting legislator, E Thirumahan Everaa, passed away recently.

As the BJP yet to announce its stance on the by-poll whether to contest or extend support to either the EPS faction or OPS camp, Panneerselvam expressed confidence in winning the election soon after announcing his candidate.

However, Panneerselvam also made it clear that if BJP would take a decision to field its candidate for Erode East by-poll, he would withdraw Senthil Murugan from contesting the election on behalf of his faction. "We have already asked for the support of the BJP for this by-polls. If it announces its candidate, we will not contest the elections", he added.

To a question, the former chief minister said if the Election Commission of India freezes AIADMK's 'two leaves symbol, his faction would take a decision to contest the by-poll on the different symbol and such decision will depend in consultation with BJP. When asked whether he would seek another AIADMK ousted leader V K Sasikala's support, he replied "surely we will meet her personally to seek her support". However, he said that he would not seek Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam's (AMMK) chief TTV Dhinakaran support as he floated his own party.