CHENNAI: Election Commission of India announced on Monday bye-election for Tiruvarur assembly constituency will be held on January 28, 2019. The seat was vacant since the demise of the DMK stalwart M Karunanidhi in August.
Tiruvarur is one of the 20 MLA seats lying vacant in Tamil Nadu, including the 18 seats where the ruling party's MLAs were disqualified by the assembly speaker. The Election Commission may have reason for not announcing the by-elections to the 18 constituencies.
The 90-days period given for the disqualified MLAs to appeal against the Madras High Court verdict gets over only in the third week of January. Further, there appears to be differences of opinion among the 18 MLAs on whether to appeal or to face by-elections.
The bypoll announcement for Tiruvarur has come just minutes after Centre announced that a high-level committee approved Rs 1,143 crores of relief funds for Gaja affected areas. Tiruvarur was one of the worst hit delta districts during Gaja cyclone which wrecked havoc across the state a month ago.
According to the notification of the Election Commission, the nomination would begin on January 3, polling on January 28 and the counting of votes is scheduled will be on January 31. Last date for filing nominations has been set as January 10. Along with Tiruvarur, Jind constituency of Haryana state legislative assembly is set to go for bye-polls to fill a vacant assembly seat. With the notification of the bypoll, the model code of conduct has come to force in Tamil Nadu.
Last month, the commission had informed the Madras High Court that it would conduct elections at Tiruvarur before February 2019. This was in response to a reply sought by the court after a petitioner moved the court seeking to conduct bye-polls in vacant constituencies. The commission had said that it will decide on the bypoll in Thiruparankundram, which is also vacant after demise of AIADMK legislator AK Bose in August, after a pending case over the last election comes to an end.