Chennai, March 10 : AIADMK deposed leader and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, O. Panneerselvam (OPS) will on Sunday conduct interviews of potential candidates from his faction for Lok Sabha seats.
OPS group AIADMK Workers Rights Retrieval Committee will enter into seat-sharing with potential partners soon and before that the former Chief Minister is planning to prepare the list of potential candidates. This is to ensure that his group gets maximum seats during the discussions.
The committee constituted by OPS includes MLAs R. Vaithalingam and Manoj Pandian, former MLA JCD Prabhakar, and former MP R. Dharmar. The committee also has V. Pughazendhi and Alagu Marudharaj, both are the spokespersons of the OPS group.
P. Ravindranath, son of OPS, had won the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Theni seat. This was the only seat lost by the DMK-led alliance in 2019 Lok Sabha polls out of the 39 seats.
OPS, who belongs to the powerful Thevar community of south Tamil Nadu, is banking on the community’s support for a political re-entry. The former Chief Minister, according to those close to him, will be entering into a political alliance with the BJP.
The alliance between OPS and BJP would lead to the front getting an advantage in the Kanniyakumari Lok Sabha seat. The BJP’s former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan had won the polls in 2014.(IANS)
