Chennai: Voting for the new representative for RK Nagar in Chennai, which has been lying vacant since the death of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, will be held on December 21. The results will be declared on December 24, the same day on which the votes will be counted.
Jayalalithaa had passed away in December 2016 while she was the Chief Minister.
The announcement comes three days after the Madras High Court gave December 31 as the deadline for the election of a new lawmaker for RK Nagar.
DMK, the opposition party, had claimed in court that one lakh bogus voters have been registered for the election and it should not be held till rectifications are done.
Jayalalithaa’s party went into disorder with factions quarreling over who should be its new leader.
The election for the RK Nagar MLA, a constituency which Jayalalithaa represented twice, was earlier scheduled for April 2017. This was declared void after massive amounts of cash were found in Chennai that were allegedly to be used to bribe voters.
In the last 40 years, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) won seven out of 11 times in same constituency.
For the ensuing election, two faces of AIADMK are in fray. One is that of TTV Dhinakaran from Sasikala faction, while the other is that of E Madhusudhanan from EPS-OPS faction. Jayalalithaa's niece J Deepa is also contesting as an independent. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has fielded Marudhu Ganesh.
Put aside by the united AIADMK, Dhinakaran the nephew of VK Sasikala, had declared that he would contest the election as a candidate of the ruling party.
Sasikala, who had lived with Jayalalithaa and who was her closest aide, has been jailed since February, 2017, for a corruption case that saw her indicted along with Jayalalithaa.
