The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has fielded its candidates in all the eleven Assembly constituencies in Salem district.
While the party has re-nominated two incumbents, including Edappadi K. Palanisamy, Minister for State Highways and Minor Ports, six sitting MLAs have been denied tickets.
The AIADMK had won in eight Assembly constituencies in the 2011 elections, and its ally DMDK had won in the rest three.
This is the fifth time Mr. Edappadi Palanisamy will be trying his luck in his native Edappadi constituency. He was elected from here in the 1989, 1991, 2011 elections, and suffered a defeat at the hands of PMK in 2006.
The other incumbent to be fielded again is G. Venkatachalam in the Salem West Assembly constituency, which came into being only during last Assembly elections. G. Venkatachalam had defeated R. Rajendran, the present secretary of the Salem Central district unit of the DMK, then. All the other nine party candidates, including two women, are new faces to the electoral fray.
Vijayalakshmi Palanisamy, former Minister, elected from Sankagiri and M. K. Selvaraj, who continues to remain as Salem urban district secretary of the party for the past one decade and elected from Salem South constituency in the 2011 elections, were among the six incumbents who have been denied tickets this time.
The other sitting MLAs who are unlucky this time are C. Krishnan, a three time MLA from Omalur, S. K. Selvam, a two time MLA from Veerapandi, S. Madeswaran of Attur, and P. Saroja, who was elected from Yercaud (reserved) constituency in the by-election held in 2013.
Women
The two women new faces are S.Manonmani (Veerapandi) and Chitra Gunasekaran (Yercaud-reserved). While Manonmani is a close relative of former Minister Vijayalakshmi Palanisamy, Chitra is the vice-president of Manjakuttai village panchayat on the Yercaud hills.
The other new comers are A. P. Sakthivel (Salem South), K. T. S. Saravanan (Salem North), R. M. Sinnathambi (Attur), S. Raja (Sankagiri), S. Vetrivel (Omalur), A. Chandrasekaran (Mettur) and A. Marudamuthu (Gangavalli).
The new candidates nominated for the city constituency of Salem South, Sakthivel is the secretary of the Salem urban district students wing of the party and Salem North constituency, Saravanan is a corporation councillor.
While S. Raja (Sankagiri) is Makudanchavadi panchayat union chairman, Sinnathambi (Attur) is the Attur union chairman, Vetrivel (Omalur) is president of Karuppur town panchayat, and Chandrasekaran (Mettur) is the chairman of Mecheri union.
What has brought much delight to the AIADMK cadre is that a majority of the new faces are youth.
Party cadre delighted as a majority of the new candidates are youth
