Tamil Nadu Assembly elections: TTV Dhinakaran picks Kovilpatti this time for poll fight

AMMK top leader TTV Dhinakaran has surprised his political rivals by choosing to contest the assembly elections from the AIADMK stronghold of Kovilpatti in southern Tamil Nadu.

Dhinakaran, known as TTV, will take on Information Minister Kadambur C Raju - who won in 2011 and 2016 - and a CPI(M) candidate. Earlier there were talks of him contesting from two seats, but it did not come up in the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam list released this week.

In a 2017 bypoll following the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, Dhinakaran had contested and won the RK Nagar assembly constituency in Chennai . His victory then had pushed bitter rival AIADMK to the second spot, while the DMK candidate lost his deposit.


TTV had done his homework before zeroing in on Kovilpatti, a TOI report said quoting unnamed AMMK insiders, predictably settling for a seat in the south which has a sizeable population of mukkulathors, the community to which he belongs. Kovilpatti, an industrial town 100 kms south of Madurai, has a sizable population of Nadars and Naickers, besides Thevars.

Dhinakaran received a big jolt going into the campaign when his aunt, and the late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa's confidante, VK Sasikala announced shortly after being released from jail in a corruption case that she was retiring from politics. The move was seen as a boost to the AIADMK, to which the duo were claiming stake.

But he refused to back down, saying he will retrieve Jayalalithaa's AIADMK and that all of "Amma's true followers" would join him.

Dhinakaran has also fielded candidates in Edappadi (Pookadai N Sekar) and Bodinayakanur (M Muthusamy), the constituencies of Chief Minister K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam .