Nainar Nagenthran leaves for new battleground after contesting in Tirunelveli for 25 years

The prolonged speculation of BJP State president Nainar Nagenthran leaving Tirunelveli Assembly constituency after a quarter century has become true as the AIADMK, the NDA’s face in Tamil Nadu, has retained the constituency for the April 23 election.

Mr. Nagenthran’s affinity with Tirunelveli constituency started in 2001, when the then AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa fielded him in the seat. He defeated DMK’s A.L. Subramanian by a slender margin of 722 votes, and managed to become a Minister in the Jayalalithaa-led Cabinet, owing to his proximity to N. Sasikala. He held prominent portfolios like electricity, transport and industries between 2001 and 2006.

However, he lost in the 2006 election to DMK’s N. Malairaja by 606 votes, but regained the seat in 2011 with the massive victory margin of 38,491 votes over DMK’s A.L.S. Lakshmanan.

In 2016 election, Mr. Nagendran was defeated by Mr. Lakshmanan with a narrow margin of 601 votes.

After Jayalalithaa’s demise, Mr. Nagenthran’s political future in the AIADMK became so bleak, which forced him to move to the BJP in August 2017.

Even though he joined the BJP that allied with the AIADMK for the 2021 Assembly polls, Mr. Nagenthran was once again the candidate for Tirunelveli, where he defeated Mr. Lakshmanan again by 23,107 votes.

As Tirunelveli has been retained by the AIADMK for the 2026 polls, the party office-bearers here are very much relieved that this segment has been ‘liberated’ from Mr. Nagenthran after a quarter century. The party is likely to field its Tirunelveli district secretary Thatchai N. Ganesa Raja, brother of Mr. Malairaja.

Sources close to Mr. Nagenthran say he had started the ‘groundwork’ in Sattur constituency in six months ago as this segment houses more than 23% Thevar community voters.

“However, DMK Minister and Mr. Nagenthran’s former Cabinet colleague K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran too has a strong presence in Virudhunagar district. So, the DMK high command will certainly give special instructions to him to ensure Mr. Nagenthran’s defeat,” said a BJP office-bearer in Tirunelveli.

Similarly, the AIADMK has allotted the Vasudevanallur (Reserved) constituency in Tenkasi district to the BJP where party’s district president Ananthan Ayyasamy, a technocrat-turned-politician, is to be fielded. Interestingly, Mr. Ananthan’s elder brother A. Manoharan, who represented this constituency as AIADMK MLA between 2016 and 2021, is now in actor Vijay’s TVK after being the supporter of former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.

Mr. Ananthan, as the founder of ‘Voice of Tenkasi Foundation’, was preparing the ground for his electoral entry by organising training camps for unemployed youth and self-help groups, lectures in colleges and other awareness programmes for the past 18 months.

In all possibilities, this segment may witness the battle between sitting MLA T. Sadan Thirumalaikumar of the MDMK and Mr. Ayyasamy.