CHENNAI: DMK MLA from Pennagaram Assembly constituency, P N Periannan (54), died here at a private hospital after prolonged illness on Tuesday. He is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. Periannan was also the DMK’s Dharmapuri (north) district secretary. He was admitted to the city hospital recently.
Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin, Finance Minister K Anbazhagan and other senior DMK leaders paid homage to their late colleague at the hospital here.
Conveying his condolence, Karunanidhi said within a week’s time, the party had lost two important functionaries. A few days ago, DMK’s Karur district secretary Vasuki Murugesan died in a road accident.
With Periannan’s death, the strength of the DMK in the State Assembly has gone down from 97 to 96 (except Assembly Speaker R Avudaiappan who also belongs to the DMK). The strength of other parties in the State Assembly as of now is: AIADMK (57), Congress (36), PMK (18), CPM (9), CPI (6), MDMK (3), VCK (2), DMDK (1), Independent (1), unattached member (one), nominated (1), Speaker (1) and vacant (three).
Periannan is the sixth member in the 13th Assembly who died before completing his term. P T R Palanivel Rajan and S P Jayaraman (DMK), D Selvaraj (Congress), S V Shanmugam (AIADMK) and Veera Ilavarasan (MDMK) were the other members who died during the past three-and-a-half years.The by-election for Pennagaram constituency that could be held by next May, would be the 11th bypoll for the current Assembly.
Four of the 11 were triggered by MLAs who had shifted their party loyalties. They were: Raja Kannappan - DMK to AIADMK, Anitha Radhakrishan - AIADMK to DMK, Cumbum N Ramakrishnan - MDMK to DMK and M Kannappan - MDMK to DMK. M Thambidurai (AIADMK), who represented Bargur constituency, resigned after getting elected from Karur Parliamentary constituency.