Karti Chidambaram, the Member of Parliament from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu, filed an application before the Congress Delhi state committee, requesting the party General Secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, to be named as the candidate for the bye-polls to the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha constituency in the state. This will enthuse the party cadre in Tamil Nadu, he told the Hindustan Times.
The Kanyakumari seat fell vacant after the death of H Vasanthakumar, who succumbed to COVID-19 on August 28, 2020. The bye-polls for the constituency will be held on April 6 along with the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly election on April 6.
This is the second time that Karti, the son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, has asked the Congress party high-command to field Priyanka Gandhi for Tamil Nadu polls. In November 2020, the Sivaganga MP had tweeted that he wants Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to contest from a seat in Tamil Nadu.
"We need a bold move. Something that will fire up the imagination of the Indian National Congress worker. Priyanka Gandhi must contest the Kanyakumari Parliamentary seat election, which is likely to be announced shortly. It will be an overwhelming victory for her party alliance," Karti had tweeted.
In January 2021, after Congress made multiple appointments to the Tamil Nadu Pradesh Congress Committee (TNCC), Karti Chidambaram had said, “These jumbo committees serve no purpose. None will have any authority which means no accountability.”
Apart from Karti Chidambaram, P Chidambaram, KS Alagiri, Manishankar Aiyer and EVKS Elangovan were among the leaders who were appointed to key positions in the state election management committees.
Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been on a poll campaign in Assam, where the Assembly elections will be held in three phases, from March 27 to April 6.
The Congress party’s Assam unit has asked for another round of campaign ahead of the elections. After Priyanka Gandhi met tea garden labourers in Assam, it led to a lot of discussions and the state unit in a report to the central leadership asked for another visit.