Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency: BJP's Annamalai to face DMK's Ganapathy Rajkumar, AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran; voting on April 19

New Delhi [India], April 14 : Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat will witness a high-stakes battle in the first phase of the General elections scheduled to be held on April 19, with Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai facing DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran.
Jharkhand Governor CP Radhakrishnan, who was the BJP candidate from Coimbatore in the past two Lok Sabha elections of 2019 and 2014, had suffered back-to-back defeats.
CPI (M) MP PR Natarajan defeated CP Radhakrishnan with a victory margin of 1,79,143 votes. The vote share of CP Radhakrishnan was 31.3 per cent. PR Natarajan got a 45.7 per cent vote share of the total polled votes.
In 2014, CP Radhakrishnan lost the election to AIADMK's P Nagarajan with a margin of 42,016 votes.
Earlier, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai released the manifesto for the Coimbatore constituency for the Lok Sabha elections on Friday.
The promises include the establishment of the Indian Institute of Management, the offices of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Coimbatore city.
Among other poll promises, the BJP also announced to introduction of round-the-clock mobile food vans named after the legendary leader and former Chief Minister, K Kamaraj.
In a post on X, Annamalai said, "Coimbatore Parliamentary Constituency, we have made 100 promises to benefit the people from all walks of life based on the objective of making the Coimbatore Parliamentary Constituency a prominent place on the world map in the next five years. My dream is our Coimbatore!"
Meanwhile, DMK candidate Ganapathy P Rajkumar exuded confidence and said that the BJP has done nothing for Coimbatore and the ruling Tamil Nadu party is getting a good response in Coimbatore.
"We are on the field, meeting people. We are going to the grassroots level, meeting people about what they have received, and whether CM MK Stalin's scheme has reached them or not and we have got a very good response. Let him (K Annamalai) attack, however, what does he have to say to people about what they promised and what they have done to the people, nothing is there," he said earlier this week.
Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted a roadshow in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore last month as part of the BJP's election campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in an attempt to gain a foothold in the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the victims of the 1998 Coimbatore serial bomb blasts on Monday at the culmination of his roadshow in Coimbatore.
Notably, the BJP is without a major alliance partner in Tamil Nadu, and PM Modi has already made multiple to Tamil Nadu this year ahead of the Lok Sabha election.
All 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will vote in a single phase on April 19 in Lok Sabha polls that will be held in seven phases. Votes will be counted on June 4. In 2019, the DMK-led alliance swept the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu, winning 38 of 39 seats.