AIADMK virtually goes it alone, candidates named in 227 seats

Virtually going it alone for the May 16 Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today named candidates for 227 seats of the total 234 while leaving only seven seats for smaller allies.

Jayalalithaa also announced that she would be seeking re-election from RK Nagar here.

Sixteen of her Cabinet colleagues were re-nominated while she denied seat to 10 others including Minister for Sports and Youth Welfare S Sundararaj who was recently in the eye of a storm over his inspection of a girl’s hostel at night.

A majority of the 149 sitting MLAs have not been renominated. She has given opportunity to party functionaries from all levels of party hierarchy, and various wings, newcomers from DMDK and PMK, besides former elected representatives.

32 women have been given tickets, including two sitting women Ministers Gokula Indira and Valarmathi.

Other sitting Ministers who have got renominated are her loyalist, O Panneerselvam, Natham R Viswanathan, R Vaithilingam, and Edapadi Palanisamy, Thoppu Venkatachalam, Sellur Raju, Thangamani, SP Velumani, R Kamaraj, KT Rajendhra Balaji, MC Sampath, RB Udayakumar, KC Veeramani, and C Vijayabaskar.