Three weeks ahead of the assembly polls, Dhinakaran's AMMK has on  Wednesday unveiled the first set of candidates who will be contesting in the assembly polls. The development has come days after AMMK had inked the deal with Owaisi's AIMIM party and formed an alliance, bringing Owaisi into the Tamil Nadu electoral politics for the first time. 

The release of the list of candidates has come when the party was surfaced with speculations over the possible names and whether Dhinakaran will reveal his constituency. The first set has contained 15 candidates for the constituencies across the state and Dhinakaran hasn't divulged where he will be contesting. Of these 15 candidates, five were former MLAs, who got disqualified by the House Speaker by opposing the ruling Edappadi Palaniswami government and supporting Dhinakaran in 2017. 

In February 2017, two months after the demise of Jayalalithaa, the ADMK had chosen her closest aide VK Sasikala as the general secretary of the party and she was about to get elected as Jayalalithaa's successor of becoming next Chief Minister. However, she walked into prison after getting convicted in the Disproportionate Assets case following which she had nominated Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister. 

The ADMK party was drifted during this transition as O Panneerselvam had held a banner of revolt against ADMK and against the rise of Sasikala. Panneerselvam's camp had ten MLAs who had voted against Edappadi Palaniswami's government in the trust vote. However, the government proved the majority. Months after the revolt, Edappadi Palaniswami and Panneerselvam had cleared the revolt and agreed to a merger. Following the merger, both of them had taken the control of the party, they had removed Sasikala from the party. 

Dissenting the merger, 18 MLAs had voiced against Edappadi Palaniswami for removing Sasikala and joining hands with Panneerselvam. These 18 MLAs had switched side and gone in support of Dhinakaran, Sasikala's nephew, following which he had launched the party AMMK. The House Speaker had disqualified these 18 MLAs under the grounds of the anti-defection law. These 18 MLAs had joined AMMK and begun rivaling against the ADMK. 

Of these 18 MLAs, AMMK had lost three MLAs - Vetrivel had passed away due to COVID-19 last year while Thanga Tamilselvan and Senthil Balaji had joined the DMK. As the assembly polls in Tamil Nadu neared, it was expected that the rest 15 MLAs will be offered with AMMK's ticket to contest in the elections. However, the first set of AMMK candidates had included only four of these disqualified MLAs. 

The first set of the list includes Palaniappan (Pappireddipatti), Anbalagan (Rasipuram), Rangasamy (Papanasam), Senthamizhan (Saidapet), NG Parthiban (Solinghar), SK Selvam (Veerapandi), RR Murugan (Harur), Sukumar (Pollachi),  TK Rajendran (Dharmapuri), Balamurugan (Bhuvanagiri), Duraiswamy (Coimbatore South), Mahendran (Usilampatti), Manoharan (Srirangam), Shanmugavelu (Madathukulam), and Umadevan (Thirupathur). 

In this list, Murugan, Palaniappan, Rangasamy, and Parthiban are the only four candidates from the list of 15 disqualified MLAs and the reports say that the rest 11 will be awarded the seats and the announcement of the second set of candidates will be made soon. Dhinakaran has signed the deal with Owaisi's AIMIM with the offer of three seats - Vaniyambadi, Krishnagiri, and Sankarapuram. Dhinakaran said that the party's manifesto will be released on March 12, when he and Owaisi organize a public meeting in Chennai.