Jayalalithaa’s RK Nagar Constituency to Vote for New MLA on Dec 21

CHENNAI:
Voting for the new representative for former chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s constituency RK Nagar in Chennai will be held on December 21. The seat has been vacant for a year since the death of Jayalalithaa.
Counting of votes and results will be declared on December 24. The announcement of dates comes three days after the Madras High Court gave a December 31 deadline for the election of a new lawmaker for the constituency.
The opposition DMK had alleged in court that one lakh fake voters have been registered for the election in RK Nagar and it should not be held till corrections are made. Jayalalithaa died while she was the Chief Minister in December 2016.
Amma’s party went into disarray with factions arguing over who should be its new leader. The election for the MLA from RK Nagar, which Jayalalithaa represented two times, was to be held in April, 2017, but was cancelled after huge amounts of cash were found in Chennai that were allegedly to be used to bribe voters.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has won seven out of 11 times in the constituency in the last 40 years. This time two faces of AIADMK are in fray for this seat. On one hand is TTV Dhinakaran from Sasikala faction and on the other is E Madhusudhanan from EPS-OPS faction.
Jayalalithaa’s niece J Deepa is also contesting the bypoll as an independent. Marudhu Ganesh, has been fielded by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for this seat.
Sidelined by the united AIADMK, Dhinakaran had announced that he would contest the election as a candidate of the ruling party. Dhinakaran is the nephew of VK Sasikala, who lived with Jayalalithaa and was her closest aide. She has been jailed since February, 2017, for a corruption case that saw her indicted along with Jayalalithaa.
Meanwhile, by-elections to fill the seats of legislative assembly will also be held in Uttar Pradesh’s Sikandra, West Bengal’s Sabang and Arunachal Pradesh’s Pakke-Kasang and Likabali.