CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu BJP list of campaign managers for the upcoming Assembly elections has revealed the list of Assembly constituencies that the party is eyeing to contest as part of its alliance with the AIADMK.
Among all the constituencies, eight senior leaders and well-known faces of the party will be handling 41 constituencies, predominantly falling in the western and southern regions of TN, besides a few more in Chennai. Party sources said that these will be the constituencies it (BJP) will be trying to bag during its negotiations with the AIADMK. Both the parties have said that the seat-sharing talks are yet to formally commence.
Predictably, the list includes eight constituencies in Coimbatore district as the BJP has a relatively significant presence in the region. The constituencies are Kinathukadavu, Coimbatore North, Kavundampalayam, Singanallur, Pollachi, Coimbatore South, Valparai (SC), and Mettupalayam. This western focus also extends to Tiruppur district (Tiruppur North, Tiruppur South and Udumalpet), the Nilgiris district (Ooty and Coonoor) and Krishnagiri district (Hosur and Thalli).
Of the 15 constituencies in western TN featured in the list, the BJP finished second in nine Assembly segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, barring Pollachi, Valparai (SC), Mettupalayam, Tiruppur North, Tiruppur South and Udumalaipettai. Notably, all eight senior leaders have been assigned different constituencies in the western region.
Equal focus is evident on Kanniyakumari, where the BJP has performed better in the past. The party finished runners-up in all five Assembly constituencies from the district that figure in the list — Nagercoil, Colachel, Padmanabhapuram, Vilavancode and Killiyoor — in 2024. It may be noted that the party displayed its best performance in Kanniyakumari and Coimbatore parliamentary constituencies.
The list also includes Madurai North and Madurai South, where the BJP secured second place, along with Thirupparankundram in Madurai district. The party has been focusing on Thirupparankundram more, given the backdrop of the recent Karthigai Deepam row.
Further in south, Radhapuram and Nanguneri in Tirunelveli district, Srivaikuntam in Thoothukudi district, Paramakudi (SC) and Mudukulathur in Ramanathapuram district, the Tenkasi constituency, Rajapalayam in Virudhunagar district and Karaikudi in Sivaganga also feature in the list. Among these, the BJP finished second in Radhapuram, Nanguneri and Tenkasi.
In Chennai, the party has identified T Nagar, Velachery, Mylapore and Virugambakkam, all falling under the Chennai South parliamentary constituency, where it secured more than 26% of the votes pushing AIADMK to the third place in the 2024 polls.
Senior leaders Arvind Menon, Sudhakar Reddy, L Murugan, Pon Radhakrishnan, Tamilisai Soundararajan, H Raja, Vanathi Srinivasan and K Annamalai are among the leaders who have been assigned these constituencies.