The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK) today released the list of candidates for 173 constituencies in Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and prominent among them is none other than Udhayanidhi Stalin, the son of party chief MK Stalin. Udhayanidhi Stalin is the party’s youth wing leader and also a well-known face in Tamil cinema as an actor and producer. DMK President MK Stalin will contest from Kolathur for the third time.

Though the party is primarily relying on heavyweights and sitting MLAs, it will field nearly 50 new faces and choose to field several of these new faces in constituencies represented by AIADMK ministers. But DMK, which always spoke for women reservation, disappointed this time with allocating only 12 women candidates which is seven per cent of the total candidates. In almost 170 constituencies DMK candidates are pitted against it’s arch-rival and ruling party AIADMK.

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DMK is one of the parties which has always advocated for the Women’s Reservation Bill that would ensure 33 per cent seat reservation for women in government posts and legislatures. Of the DMK’s women candidates, six will contest in reserved constituencies.

Addressing the media persons at Anna Arivalayam before reading the list, DMK president Stalin said, this is not the list of candidates but the list of winners in the upcoming elections.

The AIADMK on Thursday finished allotment of all seats except for the Padmanabhapuram constituency. While the party will field members in 178 seats, a total of 190 candidates will contest under the Two Leaves symbol.

Following meetings that lasted for several days, the AIADMK inked a pact with GK Vasan’s TMC (Tamil Maanila Congress) on Thursday. TMC has been allotted six seats.

The party has given seats to 23 incumbent Cabinet ministers and 45 sitting MLAs. Giving utmost heartburn to the fresh applicants, even sitting Rajya Sabha MPs KP Munusamy and P Vaithilingam have been given MLA tickets for this election. Over 9,000 persons applied to contest as party candidates in the 234 constituencies, of which at least 50 seats are being given to allies. For the remaining 180 odd constituencies, the party has fielded well-known and established leaders to a large extent. This includes former Chennai mayor Saidai Duraisamy in Saidapet, MLA Sathyanarayanan in T Nagar, former MLA JCD Prabhakar in Villivakkam, deputy speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman in Pollachi, minister for animal husbandry Udumalai Radhakrishnan in Udumalaipettai and former minister Natham R Viswanathan in Natham.

Meanwhile, the DMK has fielded young candidates against heavyweights of AIADMK and the party’s Salem district functionary Sampath Kumar is the opponent of Tamil Nadu chief minister and four-time MLA Edappadi K Palaniswami in the Edappadi constituency. The party also fielded it’s Maduravoyal south secretary Ganapathy against school education minister P Benjamin at the Maduravoyal constituency. DMK’s Thiruvallur Central District Secretary SM Naseer will face off against minister Mafoi Pandiarajan. Former AIADMK MLA JCD Prabhakaran will be up against DMK’s Nettri Azhagan in the Villivakkam constituency. At Jolarpettai, DMK has fielded their Vellore West district Secretary Dhevaraji against minister for Commercial taxes KC Veeramani.

Both the Dravidian majors-AIADMK and DMK-have fielded new faces in the R K Nagar constituency previously held by later former Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa. DMK has fielded JJ Ebinaser against AIADMK North Chennai (East) district secretary RS Rajesh. Significantly, TTV Dhinakaran, the AMMK chief and the sitting RK Nagar MLA, has chosen to contest from Kovilpatti.

DMK youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin will be making his electoral debut from the party’s bastion of Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni. He will be contesting against a PMK candidate. The ChepaukThiruvallikeni seat, once held by his grandfather and former CM M Karunanidhi, was last represented by DMK’s late J Anbazhagan, who passed away last year.