Vikrant Shekhawat : Mar 06, 2021, 10:12 AM
Chennai: The ruling AIADMK on Friday allotted 20 seats to its ally BJP for the upcoming Tamil Nadu assembly election. This is three less than the 23 seats allotted to the other regional ally, PMK. The names of the seats that would go to the BJP are yet to be released. The national party has also been allotted the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat that would go for bypolls following the death of Congress MP Vasanthakumar.The announcement made late last night was signed by Chief Minister Edapaddi Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Pannerselvam, BJP state in-charge CT Ravi and its state unit chief L Murugan.The AIADMK is yet to finalise seat-sharing with actor Vijayakant's DMDK.Earlier on Friday, the AIADMK announced its first list of six candidates that included top leaders including Mr Palaniswami and Mr Panneerselvam.Mr Palaniswami will contest the election from Edappadi constituency, while Mr Panneerselvam will contest from Bodinayakanur.Two other top ministers - D Jayakumar and C Ve Shanmugam - have been allotted seats they currently represent - Royapuram and Villupuram respectively.The Tamil Nadu assembly election will be held in a single phase on April 6 and the counting of votes will be done on May 2.Polls will be held for 234 seats in Tamil Nadu with the Congress-DMK and BJP-AIADMK alliance being the major groups contesting against each other.In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the alliance suffered a near rout losing 38 of the 39 seats in the state. The BJP had lost all 5 seats it contested. The party hopes it would be able to expand its footprint in the state through the alliance.This is the first election after the death of two iconic leaders J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi. The ruling AIADMK is aiming for a third consecutive term.