BJP's Annamalai meets Congress leader Krishnasamy Vandaiyar

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) state president and party's candidate from Coimbatore, K Annamalai, met Thanjavur South District Congress president Krishnasamy Vandaiyar when Annamalai visited Thanjavur for the election campaign. After the meeting, Annamalai said, "Krishnasamy Vandaiyar's family is a traditional one. He is a senior district leader in the Congress Party. His family has a name in Tamil Nadu. It was just a courtesy meeting."

"There is no political motive in this," he clarified. Earlier on Friday, he slammed the ruling DMK and its chief, MK Stalin, saying that they are the enemies of Tamil Nadu and the people of the state.

He also attacked the opposition INDIA bloc, saying that it does not have a prime ministerial candidate to lead the alliance. The BJP chief demanded the DMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin present a white paper on all his poll promises and what he has done in the last 33 months.

Notably, the voting for all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will go to the polls in the first phase on April 19. During the 2019 general elections, the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, which comprised Congress, VCK, MDMK, CPI, CPI(M), IUML, MMK, KMDK, TVK, and AIFB, registered a landslide victory by winning 38 of the 39 seats.

In 2019, DMK won 23 Lok Sabha seats with a 33.2 per cent vote share, Congress bagged 8 seats with a 12.9 per cent vote and CPI won two seats in Tamil Nadu. The election for 543 Lok Sabha seats in the country will be held in seven phases starting April 19. Nearly 97 crore voters are eligible to cast votes in the general election.