Members of the AMMK want deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran to enter the electoral fray in Theni Parliamentary constituency, according to Thanga Tamilselvan, the propaganda secretary of the party.
Asked whether Mr. Dhinakaran would contest the Lok Sabha polls, Mr. Tamilselvan told The Hindu, “I do not know. But it has been our demand that he face the electorate from there [Theni].”
While a member of the AIADMK, Mr. Dhinakaran was elected in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls from Periyakulam, which was subsumed into the newly-formed Theni constituency following the 2008 delimitation exercise. However, in 2004, he lost by a margin of 21,555 votes to Congress nominee J.M. Aaron Rashid.
Regarded as a traditional stronghold of the AIADMK, the constituency, prior to 2008, was won by the ruling party seven times.
In 2014, the AIADMK’s R. Parthiban emerged victorious, securing 5.71 lakh votes and defeating his nearest rival Pon. Muthuramalingam of the DMK, who received around 2.56 lakh votes. Two years later, Theni continued to remain loyal to the AIADMK as all its six Assembly constituencies were captured by the ruling party. In 2016, the sum of votes secured in all the six places was about 5.70 lakh, which meant there was no erosion of the vote base in terms of absolute figures. However, in terms of vote share, the AIADMK secured around 53% in 2014, whereas it could obtain only 49.4% in the 2016 Assembly polls.
Known for having a large number of Mukkulathor voters, Theni also has sizeable number of Scheduled Caste and Muslim voters.
