Chennai: DMK leader M. K Stalin on Saturday released a list of 4 candidates for the Assembly by-polls in the state. The party has nominated former ministers Pongalur N. Pazhanisamy from Sulur and V. Senthil Balaji from the Aravakurichi Assembly onstituency, and Dr P. Saravanan from Thiruparankundram and M. C. Shanmugaiya from the Ottapidaram(SC) Assembly constituency.
According to the Election Commission, the indelible ink will be marked on the middle finger of the voters who cast their votes in these four Assembly by-polls since the voters would have exercised their franchise on April 18.
The Election Commission on Tuesday announced by-polls in four Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu on 19th May, which happens to be the last phase of polling in the Lok Sabha election. With this, by-polls are being held for 22 seats, including 16 that have fallen vacant following the disqualification of the AIADMK legislators loyal to the “rebel” T. T. V. Dhinakaran. The last date for filing of nominations will be April 29. Scrutiny of nominations will be conducted on 30th April.
The last date of withdrawal has been declared to be May 2. Results will be declared along with the results of the LS general election on May 23.
It may be noted that the Sulur seat fell vacant in March following the death of the AIADMK MLA R. Kanakaraj due to a cardiac arrest. The Ottapidaram constituency is represented by the disqualified AIADMK MLA Sundararaj, while the Thiruparankundram legislator A. K. Bose(also AIADMK) died last year.
Aravakurichi is being represented by Senthil Balaji, a disqualified AIADMK legislator, who has joined the DMK.
Senthil Balaji was the minister for transport in the AIADMK Government from 2011 to 2015. He was dropped from the cabinet in July 2015.
He was previously elected to the Karur constituency in 2006, and in 2016, he was elected as an MLA from the Aravakurichi(Karur) constituency. The Speaker disqualified Senthil Balaji as MLA on September 18, 2017, for he was a member in T. T. V. Dhinakaran”s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam(AMMK). With much fanfare, he quit the AMMK and joined the DMK in the presence of President Stalin on December 14, 2018.
Pongalur N. Palanisamy was a former minister for Rural Industries and Animal Husbandry in the DMK Government. The Madurai-based oncologist P. Saravanan had filed the election petition in 2017, challenging the victory of A. K. Bose of the AIADMK in the by-election held in November 2016. He argued that the EC ought not to have accepted the nomination papers containing the thumb impressions of the then AIADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa, who was hospitalised at the time.
He doubted whether Jayalalithaa could have affixed the thumb impressions on her own from the hospital bed.
