BJP confident of winning Kanniyakumari seat

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The BJP, fighting the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu in alliance with the ruling AIADMK, is supremely sure that Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan will be re-elected from Kanniyakumari.

Radhakrishnan was one of only two non-AIADMK candidates to get elected to the Lok Sabha from the state in 2014 when the AIADMK, then led by Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, won a whopping 37 of the 39 seats.

"Pon Radhakrishnan has earned a good name in the constituency. He has also brought various projects for Kanniyakumari constituency," the Bharatiya Janata Party's state OBC Morcha chief S.K. Kharventhan told IANS.

The BJP is contesting five Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu as part of the AIADMK-led alliance.

The party on Thursday decided to field Pon Radhakrishnan from Kanniyakumari, state unit President Tamilisai Soundararajan from Thoothukkudi, National Secretary H. Raja from Sivaganga, C.P. Radhakrishnan from Coimbatore and Nainar Nagendran from Ramanathapuram.

BJP leaders said their focus will be on highlighting the Modi government's achievements.

Kharventhan is confident that the BJP would also bag the Coimbatore seat as C.P. Radhakrishnan had been elected twice from the constituency in the past and lost in 2014 with a margin of about 42,000 votes.

However, government employees and teachers who are said to be angry with the AIADMK government may turn against the BJP, party leaders admit. Similarly, the minorities may vote against the BJP candidates too.

Opposing C.P. Radhakrishnan in Coimbatore will be CPI-M's P.R. Natarajan, who polled 2.91 per cent of the votes in 2014 but is now part of the DMK-led alliance.