Star Candidate: J Jayavardhan/AIADMK

CHENNAI: J Jayavardhan stepped into the Parliament as the country’s youngest MP at the age of 26, by emerging victorious from the Chennai South constituency in 2014.

Hailing from the fishermen community, the soft spoken medical practitioner by profession outperformed most of the AIADMK MPs in the Parliament and actively participated in many debates. He registered the TN stand against the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) and flagged fishermen issues to make his presence felt in the House.

Though many senior leaders and AIADMK heavyweights, sensing unfavorable political situation, dodged from contesting the polls, Jayavardhan threw his hat for Chennai South constituency and started his groundwork for the campaign well ahead of the announcement of poll days.

He contested unsuccessfully against DMK’s Thamizhachi Thangapandian in the 2019 polls. He is confident of winning this time, But the question is will the wind of change blow in his favor? In addition, he will also face a seasoned politician in the form of Tamilisai Soundararajan, who quit the constitutional post Governor to enter electoral politics.

Jayavardhan accompanied his father D Jayakumar, AIADMK’s spokesperson, to keep him in the limelight during the Chennai floods in December last year and remained in touch with the constituency people. Though his father fast tracked Jayavardhan into politics, he managed to evade the tagline of nepotism by stating that late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa gave him the opportunity to contest the election in 2014 and he proved his mettle.