With both the Dravidian parties have announced the candidates and constituencies, Tamil Nadu is all set for the crucial assembly polls, the first legislative election for Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister, and for MK Stalin as the DMK President. In a race for the reign, ADMK and DMK have been preparing for locking horns in over 120 constituencies directly while the batons to defeat the rivals in the rest of the constituencies were given to the allied parties. 

While the ADMK had announced the list of candidates for the polls on Wednesday, DMK has released its final list of candidates and constituencies on Friday and the party will be contesting in 173 seats directly by allotting 61 seats to the allied parties. DMK has offered tickets to many new faces including Stalin's son Udhayanidhi Stalin and one of the significant faces in the DMK's list is Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, a well-known social activist and the Managing Trustee of the Senapathy Kangayam Cattle Research Foundation, a not-for-profit organization working with the aim of conservating the native cattle breeds. 

DMK has offered a ticket to Karthikeya Sivasenapathy to contest in the Thondamuthur constituency in the Coimbatore district and he has been tasked to take on ADMK's bighead SP Velumani in the constituency. Velumani is the incumbent legislator of this constituency and has been serving as Tamil Nadu Minister for Municipal Administration and Rural Development. Sivasenapathy is a strong critic of the ruling regime and he gained a reputation during the Marina Jallikattu protests in 2017. 

In what was an unprecedented scale of protests, thousands of young people had gathered at Marina Beach and held demonstrations of demanding the Center and state to allow the traditional Tamil sport -Jallikattu. The protests were triggered after the Center had banned the sport from the state and Karthikeya Sivasenapathy had played a vital role in organizing the protests against the ban on Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. The protests had held for weeks and it eventually got ended after the government had adopted an ordinance of repealing the ban and allowing the sport. 

Sivasenapathy has been campaigning to preserve and conserve the native cattle breeds and he also has been lending his voices against major issues across and beyond the states including Hindi Imposition and NEET and advocating that the social justice and factors of equality and inclusiveness of the Dravidian movement have played and playing a vital role in the development of the state. As a social activist, he has also been working in the areas of Biodiversity, Environment, Tamil Language and Culture, and Native Livestock. 

According to his website, Karthikeya Sivasenapathy has also a Managing Trustee for Inthinai, a non-profit organization working on support to worthwhile causes and in particular to promote equality, social justice, respecting heritage, and cultural values. He has also been a special invitee for the United Nations Forums of Food, Environment, and Agriculture and he also has received many accolades. He has been active on social media and TV shows and campaigning about conservating the native breeds of cattle. 

He joined DMK in November 2020 in the presence of the party's president MK Stalin and after joining the party, he said that his aim is to spread the contribution of the DMK to the Kongu region. The DMK party had named Karthikeya Sivasenapathy as the secretary of the party's environment wing and he has been concentrating on the Kongu belt, his native region, and campaigning for the state opposition party. Amid speculations over contesting in the assembly polls, DMK President Stalin has offered a ticket for Karthikeya Sivasenapathy to contest in Thondamuthur, Coimbatore. 

Sivasenapathy will be facing ADMK Minister SP Velumani. Velumani has become one of the top party leaders and he has been representing one of the constituencies in Kongubelt, which is the stronghold for the ruling ADMK. Velumani has been representing Thondamuthur for a decade. He won the constituency in the 2011 polls and he again won in the 2016 polls and served as the minister in Jayalalithaa's cabinet. After Edappadi Palaniswami became the Chief Minister, Velumani has become one of the power centers in Tamil Nadu and he is all set to contest from the constituency for the third time. Tamil Nadu will be going to the polls on April 6 and the results will be announced on May 2.