Chennai: S Sasikanth Senthil, former Karnataka-cadre IAS officer and chief of the Congress’ election war room, will make his electoral debut from Tiruvallur constituency in Tamil Nadu with the party renominating Karti P Chidambaram, S Jothimani, and Manickam Tagore from their respective seats.
Congress announced candidates for seven of the nine seats it will contest in Tamil Nadu as part of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) in the April 19 Lok Sabha elections. The party renominated five incumbent MPs and gave tickets to two new faces, while the candidates for Tirunelveli and Mayiladuthurai are yet to be announced.
Vijay Vasanth, son of late H Vasanthakumar of the famed Vasanth and Co, was renominated from the Kanyakumari seat, while M K Vishnuprasad, son of former TNCC chief M Krishnaswamy, was moved from Arani to Cuddalore Lok Sabha seat. Karti, son of former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, will seek re-election from Sivaganga, a family pocket borough, Jothimani from Karur in western region, and Tagore, Congress’s whip in Lok Sabha, from Virudhunagar.
K Gopinath replaces incumbent A Chellakumar from Krishnagiri in northern Tamil Nadu, while Senthil has been named in place of K Jayakumar. Six of the seven Congress candidates will take on the BJP, while only Vishnuprasad will contest against PMK in Cuddalore.
Senthil specifically sought Tiruvallur (SC) seat as his mother hails from the constituency. The 2009-batch Karnataka cadre officer quit the IAS in 2019, citing his inability to continue when “fundamental building blocks of diverse democracy are being compromised” after the Narendra Modi-led BJP dispensation was re-elected to power.
The former IAS officer joined the Congress in 2020 and was one of the people who was credited for the party’s success in the 2023 Assembly elections for the war room he headed came up with the winning strategy. After the victory, Senthil wanted to work in Tamil Nadu, but the Congress asked him to work for the Rajasthan elections and made him the head of the war room in Delhi for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Born in Chennai, Senthil did his B.E from the then Regional Engineering College in Tiruchirapalli and worked with a software firm for a year before taking up teaching. He then joined the civil services and became part of Karnataka cadre.
Karti and Jothimani are contesting for the third time in Sivaganga and Karur, both of them lost in 2014 when Congress contested alone but won in 2019 in an alliance with the DMK. This is Tagore’s fourth election from Virudhunagar; he was defeated only once in 2014, but won in 2009 and 2019.
The candidates for Mayiladuthurai and Tirunelveli are yet to be decided with the Congress’s choice in the former not finding favour with the DMK candidate. In Tirunelveli, the Congress is in a dilemma whether to field a Christian nominee or a party veteran.
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