TN Congress to appoint coordinators for 2024 polls

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) will appoint coordinators in all the Assembly constituencies that fall under the nine Lok Sabha seats the party is likely to contest in the 2024 general elections.

Sources in the state Congress told IANS that a high power meeting of the party has decided to appoint coordinators in all the Assembly constituencies that fall under the Lok Sabha constituencies that the party had contested as part of the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) led by the DMK.

It may be noted that the Congress had won eight out of the nine seats it contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as part of the alliance. The only seat which the party lost was Theni where the former Union Minister and senior Congress leader, E.V.K.S. Elangovan lost to P. Raveendranathan, son of former Chief Minister, O. Panneerselvam (OPS), incidentally the only seat which AIADMK won.

Thiruvallur, Krishnagiri, Arani, Karur, Tiruchirapalli, Sivaganga, Virudhunagar, Kanniyakumari and Theni were the seats contested by the Congress in the 2019 general elections.

According to a senior leader of the Congress, it will be appointing coordinators in each of the Assembly constituencies that fall under these Lok Sabha seats.

The coordinator will further appoint booth level coordinators who will be responsible for addition and removal of voters in the electoral list, the basic election work.

The state Congress is expecting each coordinator to conduct a proper analysis of each booth and the pluses and minuses of the party and the people's representatives in each of these booths.

Sources in the Congress told IANS that the party state president, K.S. Alagiri, who is most likely to continue till the 2024 general elections, is keen that the party retains all the seats it had won as well as to wrest the Theni seat. The Congress is also planning to ask for more seats from the DMK, but the possibilities of further seats appear remote.