Can a member of the AIADMK selection committee for the Lok Sabha polls be an aspirant as well?
This was the situation P. Venugopal, two-time Member of Parliament from Tiruvallur, brought about on Tuesday. Though he is a member of the ruling party’s high-level administrative committee, which interviewed over 1,400 prospective candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in the last two days, Dr. Venugopal himself attended the interview on Tuesday.
“This is how it should be. It is a reflection of our party’s democratic norms,” he told The Hindu .
On Monday, P. Ravindranath, son of Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and an aspirant for the Theni and Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituencies, told reporters that he was not someone who had just come to the party headquarters seeking a ticket after landing at the Meenambakkam airport on completion of his studies in the United States. He went on to describe how he had been working for the party over the last two decades.
If one were to go by the visuals of how he was received by the members of the committee when he attended the interview, it was apparent that he received “special treatment” from the panel.
When he presented a bouquet to Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, it was not just the CM but other members of the committee as well who got up from their seats.
