Saurashtra panel backs two community candidates in Madurai South

Madurai: The Saurashtra Political Action Committee (S-PAC) has announced that it would extend its support exclusively to two candidates from the Saurashtraian community, who are contesting from Madurai South constituency.Addressing reporters in Madurai, K R M Kishore Kumar, retired DGP, convenor of the coordinating committee, said Madurai has a significant Saurashtra population. "Around two lakh voters from the Saurashtra community are spread across Madurai district. In Madurai South alone, around 40,000 voters belong to our community," he said.He said the committee, seeking political representation for the community, organised a conference in Madurai last Dec and submitted several demands to leaders of all political parties, including that parties field candidates from the Saurashtra community in Madurai South constituency."Accepting our request, two parties have fielded candidates from our community — M M Gopisan for TVK and B M Sumathi for NTK. We appeal to Saurashtra voters to support either of these two candidates," he added.Dinesh, S-PAC's treasurer, said the committee would carry out extensive campaigning across the constituency, both jointly with the candidates and independently, going door to door and urging voters to support either of the two. "In other constituencies, we will create awareness regarding elections and help ensure that the people make informed choices," he added."In the 2022 Madurai corporation election, not a single councillor from the Saurashtra community was elected in any of the 100 wards. In the past, we won in four or five wards, but this time, none of our candidates succeeded. This has caused deep disappointment within our community," Kishore Kumar said.He added that in Kumbakonam, NTK is fielding a Saurashtra community candidate, advocate M Anand, and expressed confidence that the community would extend full support to him as well.