COIMBATORE: With the Communist Party of India (Marxist), an ally of DMK, demanding the Singanallur Assembly Constituency this time, the party district secretary C Padmanabhan is likely to field as the candidate, if the constituency is allocated to CPM.
In the 2021 assembly election, CPM was not given a seat in the 10 assembly constituencies in Coimbatore district. It was given six seats at Nagapattinam, Gandarvakkottai, Kovilpatti, Dindigul, Thiruparankungram and Harur. The party won at Nagapattinam and Gandarvakkottai.
In the 2026 assembly election seat sharing talks with DMK, the party is expecting Singanallur to be given to them based on their demand. KC Karunakaran from CPM became the last MLA from the constituency in 2001. In 2006, the CPM contested in Singanallur constituency under the DMK alliance when party candidate A Soundararajan lost by 14 votes to AIADMK candidate R Chinnaswamy.
After that, the party has not contested directly from the constituency so far. In 2016, when CPM was under the Makkal Nala Kootani, the seat was allocated to MDMK. Meanwhile, the party feels that it should contest from Coimbatore district after it has expressed willingness for Singanallur Constituency as it has a considerable number of votes from working class people.
Speaking to TNIE, a CPM functionary in Coimbatore said, "During the first round of seat sharing talks, our party has handed over a list containing 20 constituencies in which CPM has expressed willingness to contest in the election. Of this, Singanallur Constituency is one among the constituencies we have demanded for the election. As CPM has considerable votes in Coimbatore, which has more working class people in industries, especially in Singanallur, we have pointed out the constituency."
A state level-executive committee member of the party said, "As per our state committee's decision, we sought in double digits that is up to 10 constituencies in the seat sharing. However, during the second level talks with the DMK high committee, they started at four seats, which is two seats reduced from the last election.
We were asked to adjust the seats up to a maximum of five seats in the negotiation, pointing to CPI, which had already agreed for the number. Members participating in the talk expressed their bitterness over CPM's involvement on the Foxconn employees strike, EB smart metre issue and the government's order on increasing working hours from 12 to eight hours. However, we did not agree with the number offered by DMK. The negotiation is still on."