By IANS,
Chennai : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J. Jayalalithaa has deputed two of her party MPs to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at Chandigarh March 14, an official statement said Saturday.
The statement said Badal had Saturday phoned Jayalalithaa to invite her to the ceremony, but she told him that even though she wanted to attend, she was unable to do so due to her campaign schedule for the March 18 Sankarankoil by-poll.
Jayalalithaa instead deputed MPs M. Thambidurai and V. Maitreyan to attend Badal’s swearing-in.
The Sankarankoil by-poll has turned out to be a prestigious contest for AIADMK as Jayalalithaa had thrown an open challenge to her erstwhile ally DMDK to contest on its own.
The by-poll is crucial as it is the first election after the ruling AIADMK parted with its assembly election allies like DMDK, the two communist parties and others and the first poll after the government jacked up the bus fares and milk prices.
The constituency has over 200,000 voters.
The by-poll is necessitated by the death of sitting member, AIADMK’s C.Karuppasamy, in October due to ill health.
The AIADMK has fielded V. Muthuselvi while DMK and DMDK have pitted J. Jawahar Suryakumar and K. Muthukumar, respectively, against her.
MDMK which boycotted the assembly polls last year has fielded T. Sadan Thirumalaikumar while the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate is L. Murugan.