Tamilnadu will go to general polls in a single phase on 19th of April. The notifications for the polls will be issued today. The last date for filing of nomination will be on the 27th of this month. Scrutiny will be done on 28th and the last date for withdrawal will be on 30th March. Bye polls for the Vilavancode Assembly constituency will also be held simultaneously in the State. The constituency fell vacant due to the resignation of former Congress Whip Vijayadharani. Out of the 39 constituencies, Chidambaram, Nagapattinam, Tenkasi, Nilgiris, Villupuram, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram are reserved constituencies and the others are general.

A report from our correspondent:
This time it will be a three cornered contest in the State as AIADMK has decided to walk out of the NDA alliance and face the elections. BJP for the first time without AIADMK is all set to test the political waters in the State by forming alliance with Pattali makkal Katchi, Tamil Maanila Congress, Amma Makkal Katchi led by TTV Dinakaran and other smaller parties. The present State opposition AIADMK is still to finalise its alliance partners. DMK on the other hand has sealed the deal with Congress in nine seats in Tamilnadu and one in Puducherry. DMK will contest in 21 seats, VCK, CPM and CPI will contest in two each, MDMk, IUML, Kongu Nadu Makkal Katchi have been allotted one seat each. The newcomer to the alliance is the actor-politician KamalHasan of the Makkal Neethi Maiyam. On the agreement that a Rajya Sabha seat will be given to his party in 2025, he has pledged support for the Alliance. It is to be noted that his party had secured 2.62 percent votes in the 2021 State Assembly election. In the 2019 elections, BJP’s vote share was 3.6 percent when it was in the AIADMK alliance and contested five seats. The secular Democratic Progressive Alliance in the 2019 elections won with 53.15 percent votes.