Accordingly a two time Rajya Sabha MP and the daughter of late former Chief Minister and former DMK President M Karunanidhi, Kanimozhi is facing her first direct election from Thoothukudi. Meanwhile the constituency in southern Tamilnadu is nearly 600 kilometers from Chennai, where Kanimozhi has spent most of her life, but the DMK’s women’s wing leader dismisses the idea that she will be seen as an outsider to the voters in Thoothukudi.
Furthermore the leader has been grooming the constituency for the past four years, spending a small sum of her MPLAD funds on 14 works in Thoothukudi district. When explaining why she chose the constituency, Kanimozhi says, “It is an area with a lot of potential but unfortunately there have not been enough industries here, a lot of agricultural industries can be brought here which hasn’t been done, where a lot of employment opportunities are possible in Thoothukudi.”
Moreover Kanimozhi’s rival, the BJP’s Tamilisai Soundararajan, also hails from the Nadar community, and proudly proclaims her roots to Nagercoil in the neighboring district of Kanyakumari. The BJP’s state President and Thoothukudi candidate “She wants the southern part of Tamil Nadu to enter into developmental mode”. Although she has unsuccessfully contested in two Assembly Elections and one Parliamentary Election in the past, Tamilisai is upbeat about her chances against Kanimozhi.
