BJP nominates Pon Radhakrishnan for Kanyakumari Lok Sabha bypoll

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New Delhi: The BJP named its senior leader and former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan as the candidate for bypoll to the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu which will take place on April 6, the party announced in a statement in Delhi on Saturday.

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of the MP, Congress leader H Vasantha Kumar in August 2020 due to COVID-19.

The BJP's Central Election Committee (CEC), which met under its party chief JP Nadda and was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah, approved Radhakrishnan's name.

Radhakrishnan had won from Kanyakumari in the 2014 parliamentary polls to be inducted in then Modi-led NDA dispensation as Minister of State for Finance and Shipping, but lost the subsequent 2019 Lok Sabha elections to Kumar from the same constituency.

Radhakrishnan is also a former state BJP president.

Meanwhile, on Friday after hectic deliberations with its ally AIADMK, the Bharatiya Janata Party settled on a seat-sharing pact where 20 Assembly constituencies and the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha has been allotted to the BJP.

The AIADMK released of its first list of six candidates for the polls on Friday.