EPS wishes to maintain party's tradition of announcing candidates ahead of arch rival DMK

CHENNAI: In a bid to announce the list of party candidates for the Lok Sabha polls ahead of its arch rival DMK and its front - INDIA bloc, General secretary of the AIADMK Edappadi K Palaniswami instructed the district secretaries to give a list of potential candidates at the earliest.

Palaniswami hinted that the list of candidates should be announced in the month of February.

Chairing a meeting with the district secretaries for nearly an hour, Palaniswami directed the district secretaries to give names of two to four winnable candidates from their respective district. He asked the district secretaries to strengthen the booth level committees.

Palaniswami, according to the party insiders, wanted to announce the candidates for the LS polls ahead of other parties.

"He wanted to announce the candidate list in Amma (Jayalalithaa) style and insisted the list should be announced in the first or second week of February. He asked the district secretaries to work hard to win at least 20 seats in the parliament elections, " said a functionary privy to the closed door meeting at the party headquarters on Tuesday.

"The party will give opportunity to functionaries, who worked for the party untiringly, and candidates with winning possibilities in the polls. He also urged the district secretaries to maintain cordial relationships with alliance parties," the functionary quoting Palaniswami. After the meeting with the district secretaries, Palaniswami held another round of discussion with his close associates S P Velumani, P Thangamani and a few others from the Western region.

Left with no formidable alliance partner, Palaniswami asked district secretaries to bury their hatchets with estranged party functionaries and make efforts to ensure their return to the party ahead of the polls.

Palaniswami has also sent across a clear message to senior leaders that they should take care of the electioneering works and expenditure for the candidates proposed. They should be held responsible for the outcome of the election results in their region, said a functionary and alluded that it was a message for leaders like C Ve Shanmugam and K P Anbazhagan, who insist on fielding candidates of thier choice in their region.

At the end of the meeting, Palaniswami asked the district secretaries to stay in Chennai for the day with a message that some of them would be called for a meeting later in the day at his camp office.

It may be recalled that senior AIADMK leaders in the recently held general council meeting echoed that Palaniswami would take the call on the alliance and asked the functionaries to work for victory of the party candidates and its allies in the LS polls.

150 from other parties joined AIADMK

Around 150 cadres from the ruling DMK party and other parties in Thiruthani joined the AIADMK in the presence of Palaniswami in the camp office.