After DMK and AIADMK, it was the BJP's turn to announce its candidate from RK Nagar constituency in Chennai. The party announced music director Gangai Amaran as the candidate who will take on Aiadmk (Sasikala) factions TTV Dhinakaran, DMK'S Marudha Ganesh, OPS faction's Madhusudhanan and Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Jayakumar.
Gangai Amaran had joined the BJP in January 2014 along with actor-choreographer Gayathri Raghuram. He hails from a family which is associated with the Communist Party of India. He is brother of the music genius Ilayaraja and was a member of the DMK.
The battle to win over RK Nagar has become a high profile one with five candidates set to take on each other.
Gangai Amaran had voiced his opposition to Sasikala in February, following former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's rebellion.
His outburst at the time against Sasikala was, however, personal.
It goes back to 1994 when the music director 'sold' his 22-acre farmhouse at Payyanur on Old Mahabalipuram Road to Sasikala, who reportedly told him "Amma likes your farmhouse".
Here is what Amaran had told the court during the DA case hearing, according to TOI.
He said Baskaran, son of Sasikalaa's sister Vanitha, took him to Poes Garden to meet Jayalalithaa. There he met Sasikalaa, who told him that the chief minister visited the Payyanur land and liked it very much, and that she was very much interested to buy it. Amaran said the house was very useful for music composing and story writing, and that he did not want to sell it. Thereafter, Sudhakaran talked to him daily over phone or came to his house. His family members were not willing to sell the land. At last, they decided to sell it. Sudhakaran and some officers came to his house and got his signature and the signature of his wife on October 1, 1994. They gave two demand drafts for Rs 13.1 lakh,” he said.
Stating that he had personal anger against Sasikala since they had snatched his property, he said, “Imagine, they even forced big people like me and snatched away our property. Sasikala was responsible for all this,” he said in February following Sasikala's elevation to Leader of the Legislature Party.
Amaran had also said that it was time for ‘victims’ like him to fight back. “I don’t care, come and cut my neck and go. People like me who have been affected have to fight,” he said.