Constituency change for ruling party alliance leaders in LS poll

CHENNAI: The next Lok Sabha election is at least a year ahead, but talks of shifting constituencies have already begun in the political circles.

If information trickling out of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance were something to go by, a senior Minister in the state might have recommended a change in constituency for VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, the sitting MP of Chidambaram constituency.

A discussion to this effect was understood to have taken place during a recent meeting between the VCK president and the influential Minister in the top rung of the DMK pecking order.

The DMK Minister was understood to have advised Thirumavalavan to migrate from Chidambaram to Tiruvallur, which is currently being held by state Congress working president K Jayakumar.

DMK sources with knowledge of the chance meeting disclosed that the senior Minister had cited the difficulty Thirumavalavan had faced in 2019 in Chidambaram, particularly the resistance from the likes of PMK. While the rest of the DMK led alliance candidates had managed to secure whopping margins running into lakhs in the previous Parliamentary poll, Thiruma who had contested in his own (pot) symbol had sneaked through by a narrow margin of a little over 3,200 votes against a candidate of the AIADMK.

The other successful candidate from the VCK, Ravikumar had won by a much higher margin in Villupuram, contesting in DMK’s “Rising Sun” symbol. Significantly, Thiruma is not the only sitting MP facing heat from a DMK Minister in retaining the constituency. A left and Congress MP each from Coimbatore and Karur have been kept on tenterhooks by another influential Minister from the region viz-a-viz retaining sitting MPs constituency.