Jayalalithaa releases 6th list of candidates

CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday released the party’s sixth list of nominees for the forthcoming elections to the local bodies — this time for 398 town panchayats. With this, Jayalalithaa has announced nominees for 529 town panchayats. Of the 529 nominees, 197 are women. Already, Jayalalithaa has announced nominees for 124 municipalities and all the 10 corporations. There were expectations that leaders of alliance partners — the CPI, CPM and DMDK — would visit Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden residence to hold seat-sharing talks. However, after many hours of waiting, mediapersons returned empty handed as none of them turned up. Meanwhile, Finance Minister O Panneerselvam and a couple of other senior ministers held discussions with Jayalalithaa. After some time, the AIADMK headquarters released the list of candidates for town panchayats.