CHENNAI: The Election Commission on Sunday announced bypolls for four vacant assembly seats in various states. However, despite two assembly seats in Tamil Nadu lying vacant for months now, the seats did not figure in the list.
The Vikravandi assembly seat fell vacant after DMK MLA K Rathamani passed away in June. Nanguneri assembly seat is vacant after Congress MLA H Vasantha Kumar resigned in May after being elected as Member of Parliament.
Raveenthran Duraisamy, a political analyst, told TNIE, "Usually, the ECI would schedule the election dates with the consultation of the respective state government. In this issue, we don’t know the opinion of the state government over conducting bypoll here. We can get the clarity on this only when the ECI reveals the reason for delaying the bypoll in the state."
RS Bharathi, Rajya Sabha MP and DMK organising secretary, said, “We don’t know the reason for delaying the bypolls in Tamil Nadu while it has been scheduled in four other states. We will raise the issue with the ECI at the earliest.”