The Congress in Tamil Nadu is in a fix as there are too many aspirants for the nine Lok Sabha seats allotted to it by the DMK, excluding the lone seat in Puducherry. The problem has been accentuated by the fact that four of the five newly appointed TNCC working presidents have sought ticket.
“The high command appointed them to do party work and improve the party’s performance in the election. But they are using their position to bag a seat for themselves,” a senior TNCC leader rued. While the party rules prevent the president of the State unit from contesting elections, there was no such bar on other office-bearers.
TNCC president K.S. Alagiri, who was elected from the Cuddalore constituency earlier, will not contest, but the four working presidents — K. Vishnuprasad, Vasanthkumar, Mayura Jayakumar and Jayakumar are said to have approached the high command for a seat.
“All the five have been given a specific mandate — to do party work. If they also want to contest, who will do the party work,” asked another TNCC leader. Mr. Vasanthakumar, in an interview to a Tamil weekly, said entering Parliament was his goal. “He is a sitting MLA, elected from Nanguneri, and if elected to Lok Sabha, it will cause a vacancy in the Assembly constituency,” said a Congress leader questioning his decision to enter the fray.
Mr. Vasanthakumar is eyeing the Kanyakumari constituency, while the CPI(M) and the DMK also have plans to field candidates in the seat. A working president, however, argued that their newly-acquired position would come in handy to effectively deal with leaders of other parties and candidates. “In many other States the working presidents have been given ticket to contest in elections,” he said.