DMDK President and Chief Ministerial candidate of the People’s Welfare Front (PWF) Vijayakanth on Monday said that he would contest from Ulundurpet constituency in the May 16 Assembly elections.

Ulundurpet, which is located in the vicinity of Vijayakanth’s wife Premalatha’s native place, is in the Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu. Since the constituency has a good support base for Vijayakanth, from his acting days, DMDK believed the actor could easily win the seat.

Moreover, DMK was not fielding a strong candidate here. The seat was given to Manitha Neya Makkal Katchi, a small ally. This had brightened the winning prospects of Vijayakanth.

Vijayakanth was first elected to the Assembly in 2006 from Vridhachalam when he was the lone candidate to win after floating the party in 2005.

In the 2011 elections, which he faced as an ally of the AIADMK, he won from Rishivandhiyam and his party won 29 seats and became the Principal Opposition party in the State Assembly, pushing the DMK to the third place.

However, the DMDK snapped ties with the AIADMK after heated exchanges in the Assembly and faced the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as an ally of the BJP-led NDA that also included the MDMK, PMK and other parties. However, the DMDK could not even secure a single seat and also lost deposit in many Parliamentary seats.

The DMDK, which was allotted 104 seats under the seat sharing agreement, released the final list of 11 candidates on Monday. The party had already released the list for 93 seats.