It's Andipatti for Jaya again, Ponnaiyan out of reckoning

Chennai, Mar 27 (UNI) AIADMK General Secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa will seek re-election from Andipatti constituency in Theni district for the second consecutive time, even as three of her Cabinet colleagues, including Finance Minister C Ponnaiyan, were denied party tickets to contest the May eight Assembly elections.

The AIADMK, heading the Democratic People's Alliance, is contesting 182 Assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, 16 in Pondicherry and 54 in Kerala.

Amid high expectations, the AIADMK Supremo released the complete list of party candidates for the two states and the Union Territory, a majority of whom were new faces.

In Tamil Nadu, three Ministers -- Mr Ponnaiyan, P Annavi and Inbathamilan and Deputy Speaker 'Varagur' A Arunachalam failed to find a place in the list, while the remaining 20 Ministers have been re-nominated from their respective constituencies.

Mr Ponnaiyan's exit was on the expected lines as he was said to have fallen out with the party leadership for quite some time.

Former Assembly Speaker and Party Presidium Chairman K Kalimuthu, who was elected from Tirumangalam seat in the 2001 Assembly elections, has been nominated for Madurai Central seat this time.

Similarly, Social Welfare Minister Vijayalakshmi Palanisamy will fight it out from Veerapandi instead of the Panamarathupatti, being held by her now.

Ms Jayalalithaa has chosen to seek the people's mandate again from the party's traditional stronghold of Andipatti, where she drubbed her DMK opponent by polling 58.22 percentage of votes in the 2002 byelections.

Of the 132 sitting MLAs, only 48 people have been nominated again. Ms Jayalalithaa also gave opportunity to 24 women for contesting the elections.

Some of the old guards of the party like Former Ministers K A Sengottaiyan and M Thambidurai, Treasurer Dindigul S Srinivasan and Propaganda Secretary O S Manian have also made it to the list.

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