LS polls: Sivaganga to witness three-cornered contest between BJP, Cong, AIADMK; voting on April 19

SIVAGANGA: The upcoming Lok Sabha Elections for the Sivaganga constituency in Tamil Nadu will witness a high-stakes, three-cornered showdown with the BJP's Devanathan Yadav going up against Congress sitting MP, Karti Chidambaram, and A Xavierd of the AIADMK.

Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram, is seeking a third term in the Lok Sabha from Sivaganga, a traditional Congress stronghold.

The BJP has made an entry through an unconventional candidate, Devanathan Yadav, a Chennai-based businessman who owns the WinTv group.

All 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will be polled in the first phase of the general elections on April 19, and the counting of votes will be done on June 4 like rest of the country.

In 2019 general elections, the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, comprising the Congress, VCK, MDMK, CPI, CPI(M), IUML, MMK, KMDK, TVK, and AIFB, registered a landslide victory, winning 38 of the 39 seats. The Congress bagged 8 seats out of the nine contested.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, won only one seat.

While Congress candidate V Vaithilingam won the only seat in the Puducherry Parliamentary Constituency.

Earlier, claiming that the people were 'unhappy' with the Chidambaram family, the BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from Sivaganga, Devanathan Yadav said there was an 'anti-DMK wave' across the state.

Speaking to ANI, the BJP leader alleged that neither the former Union Minister, who represented Sivanganga in the Lower House over a number of years, nor his son and sitting MP, ever bothered to visit the people of the constituency.

"We are hopeful of wresting Sivaganga from the Congress by a significant margin this time, as the people are unhappy with the Chidambaram family. Neither P Chidambaram nor his son Karti cared to visit the constituency consistently since 1984. So, we are going into this election with plenty of expectations and are hopeful of winning it by a significant margin," he said.

"The people are miffed with the Chidambaram family because of their lack of engagement with the households here and their absence from public interactions. They are also not happy over the absence of any factories or industrial units in the Sivagangai district," the BJP leader added.

Claiming further that an 'anti-DMK wave' was prevailing across the entire state, he added, "If elected, I will strive to set up a major industrial unit here that will open up employment opportunities for thousands. The NDA is well-poised to cash in on the anti-DMK sentiment and anger against the Chidambarams and will this seat comfortably."

Meanwhile, Chidambaram said that people are looking for change and the manifesto given by Congress is for change. Karti P Chidambaram, said, "They (BJP) have failed on every front. There is distress among the people. People are looking for change and the manifesto given by Congress is for change.

We were getting welcome when I said that people will be getting Rs 400 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme."