Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha elections 2024: Who are the key faces in the fray? Which issues could the electorate vote on?

Tamil Nadu’s all 39 Lok Sabha seats will vote in the first phase on 19 April. India is holding general elections from Friday in seven phases until 1 June.

The southern state is the fifth largest in terms of Lok Sabha constituencies, with 32 unreserved seats and seven reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates.

Here’s what you need to know about Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha elections 2024.

Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha elections

Regional parties have dominated Tamil Nadu elections for decades. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) bagged 24 seats with a 33.12 per cent vote share, while its ally Congress got eight and six seats were won by other partners.

The MK Stalin-led party’s main rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) secured just one seat with a vote share of 19.15 per cent. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not win a single seat and got a 3.58 per cent vote share.

This time, the DMK is fighting from 21 seats and its ally Congress from nine. Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist), also a part of the alliance, are contesting from two seats each, while other allies – the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi (KMDK) – will field candidates from one seat each.

The AIADMK, the principal Opposition party in the state, has forged an alliance with Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), founded by actor-politician Vijayakanth, Puthiya Tamilagam (PT) and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has also extended its support to the AIADMK.

AIADMK has kept 32 seats for itself, five for DMDK and one each for minor parties like PT and SDPI.

The BJP has an electoral understanding with Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) or TMC-M, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) and the ousted AIADMK leader, O Panneerselvam.

The saffron party is contesting 23 seats, the PMK 10, the TMC-M three and the AMMK two. They are also backing former CM Panneerselvam who is contesting as an Independent.

The Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) led by actor-director Seeman has fielded candidates on all 39 seats, offering 50 per cent of seats to women, as per The Hindu.

A total of 950 candidates are in the fray. At least 15 per cent of the contenders in Tamil Nadu have declared they have criminal cases against them, The Hindu reported citing Tamil Nadu Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) which examined the self-sworn affidavits of 945 candidates.

Nine per cent of the candidates have declared serious criminal cases.

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Tamil Nadu LS poll phase

Polling for all 39 Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha seats will take place on Friday.

These constitiencues include Thiruvallur, Chennai North, Chennai South, Chennai Central, Sriperumbudur, Kanchipuram, Arakkonam, Vellore, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Thiruvannamalai, Arani, Viluppuram, Kallakurichi, Salem, Namakkal, Erode, Tiruppur, Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Pollachi, Dindigul, Karur, Tiruchirappalli, Perambalur, Cuddalore, Chidambaram, Mayiladuthurai, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Sivaganga, Madurai, Theni, Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, and Kanniyakumari.

Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha polls: Key candidates

DMK’s sitting MP Kanimozhi is again fighting from Thoothukudi in southern Tamil Nadu. The BJP has fielded Nainar Nagendran against her. She had defeated BJP’s Tamilisai Soundararajan from the constituency by a margin of margin of 3, 47,200 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai is another key candidate in the polls. He is contesting from Coimbatore against DMK’s Ganapathy, a former mayor of the city. The BJP, which has never won any election on its own in Tamil Nadu and its vote share has never reached the double-digit mark, has been trying hard to make electoral inroads in southern India. Annamalai, who is aggressively steering the party in Tamil Nadu, aims to make the goal come true in the state.

The BJP is trying to make electoral inroads in Tamil Nadu. PTI File Photo

Union Minister of State L Murugan is BJP’s candidate from Nilgiris against DMK’s A Raja, a former Union telecom minister. Raja had won the seat in 2019, defeating AIADMK candidate M Thiyagarajan by more than 200,000 votes. Lokesh Tamilselvan from the AIADMK and NTK leader A Jayakumar are also contesting from the seat.

TTV Dhinakaran of the AMMK is fighting from Theni, which will see a tripolar contest. Thanga Tamil Selvan of the DMK and AIADMK’s VT Narayanasamy are also testing their fortunes from the seat.

O Panneerselvam is making his Lok Sabha debut from Ramanathapuram.

Former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundarajan is in the fray on a BJP ticket from the prestigious South Chennai constituency. She will be squaring off with DMK’s sitting MP Tamizhachi Thangapandian and AIADMK’s J Jayavardhan from the constituency.

DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran is again contesting from Chennai Central, a stronghold of the party. The BJP has given a ticket to Vinoj P Selvam from the seat.

Congress has nominated sitting MP Karti P Chidambaram from Sivaganga. He will be facing the BJP’s T Devanathan Yadav and the AIADMK’s Xavier Dass. As per The Hindu, Karti’s father and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram had won the Sivaganga Lok Sabha Constituency seven times since 1984.

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Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK) chief TR Paarivendhar will contest from Perambalur against DMK’s KN Arun Nehru and ND Chandra Mohan of the AIADMK.

Former Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan has again got a BJP ticket from Kanniyakumari. He has been contesting from the constituency since 2009, winning it in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress has fielded sitting MP Vijay Vasanth against him.

TN Lok Sabha elections: Key issues

As per a PTI report, increasing unemployment, a lack of export prospects for farmers, and the issue of acquiring land for the airport project are among key poll issues in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchirappalli.

The BJP tried to turn the “ceding” of Katchatheevu island to Sri Lanka by the then Congress government at the Centre in 1974 as an electoral issue. However, it remains to be seen if the issue left a mark on voters.

The AIADMK, whose candidates are fighting on its symbol of “Two Leaves”, has placed hopes on the “factor of anti-incumbency” against the DMK government in the state due to inflation and a rise in power tariff, property tax rates and prices of several dairy products, reported The Hindu.

The main Opposition party has also tried to corner the DMK government over its “failure” to get the state exempted from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical courses, the newspaper report added.

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Who will TN favour?

Tamil Nadu has been voting largely in favour of one party for the past three Lok Sabha elections. The DMK and Congress, which are part of the INDIA bloc, seem to have an advantage in the Dravidian heartland and their alliance is likely to bag most of the 39 seats.

According to News18’s Mega Opinion Poll, the INDIA group will have an edge with 30 seats, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could clinch five seats, while the AIADMK and allies may win four seats.

The opinion poll also predicts 51 per cent vote share for the INDIA bloc, 13 per cent for the NDA and 17 per cent for AIADMK and its partners.

We will have to wait for 4 June to find out how Tamil Nadu voted in the Lok Sabha polls.

With inputs from agencies