CPI(M)’s Venkatesan to contest again from Madurai

Chennai, Mar 15 (PTI) Sitting Member of Parliament from Madurai Su Venkatesan will enter the poll fray in the 2024 elections again as the CPI (M) candidate from the same constituency, while his party colleague R Sachithanantham has been fielded from the Dindigul Lok Sabha seat, the Marxist party announced on Friday.

Venkatesan, a member of the state executive committee of the CPI (M) and recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award, has been a vocal critic of the BJP government at the Centre, particularly over the delay in executing the Madurai AIIMS project.

Sachithanantham, the party’s Dindigul district secretary, has offered over three decades of dedicated service to the party and has been championing the cause of the farmers, CPI (M) state secretary K Balakrishnan told reporters here.

The decision to field them was ratified at the party’s state committee meeting earlier today.

The two seats were allocated to the party by their alliance partner, the ruling DMK, during the seat-sharing talks. During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, CPI(M) had contested and won from Madurai and Coimbatore. The Dindigul seat was won by DMK’s P Velusamy.
Responding to a question, Balakrishnan said his party has already begun the poll campaign and that the party’s national leaders would soon hit the campaign trail to garner votes for the INDIA bloc candidates.