Postpone Tiruvarur bypoll, say parties; CEO sends report

CHENNAI: After all major political parties in the state, barring the AMMK, demanded postponement of the Tiruvarur bypoll citing Cyclone Gaja at the all-party meeting convened by Tiruvarur collector and district election officer L Nirmal Raj on Saturday in which the DMK, the AIADMK and the CPM took part, chief electoral officer Satyabrata Sahoo has forwarded a report to the Election Commission.
T T V Dhinkaran's AMMK, which wanted the bypoll to be held, was the sole dissenter.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister and AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam, who declared that the "AIADMK was ready to contest the poll whenever it was held, and would win it with a record margin," said the party would announce its candidate in a day or two.

The DMK and the AMMK had already named their candidates.

State BJP chief Tamilisai Soundarajan said the party's core committee would meet on Sunday to decide on contesting the Tiruvarur bypoll.

DMK, AIADMK, others want bypoll postponed in view of Gaja relief

The DMK, AIADMK, CPM and other recognised parties made it clear on Saturday that they were against holding the by-election to the Tiruvarur constituency now in the context of the ongoing cyclone relief measures there. Representatives of these parties who attended the all-party meeting convened by Tiruvarur collector and district election officer (DEO) L Nirmal Raj, insisted that the focus should be on carrying out relief works in the affected areas rather than diverting attention to the by-election.

CPM district secretary of Tiruvarur, G Sundaramoorthy, said that holding the by-election in the midst of the cyclone relief measures was unnecessary. “People hit by Gaja cyclone are yet to recover fully. The relief measures have not reached all the affected people. Moreover, the enumeration in the affected areas is yet to be over, something which the chief minister himself admitted in the assembly. So, we are of the view that this is not the time for a by-election and asked the collector to stop it,” said Sundaramoorthy.

Former member of parliament A K S Vijayan who was the DMK representative, two functionaries from AIADMK — advocate Swaminathan and R K P Viswanatham, DMDK functionary Muthaiah and BJP functionaries Sankar and Ragavan also echoed the view to the collector. One representative said that the by-election could be conducted along with the Lok Sabha election in May. A representative of BJP mentioned about Pongal on January 15 and pointed out that people would be busy preparing for the festival. Since AMMK was not a registered party, its representatives did not take part in the meeting.

However, what the representatives of the parties said at the meeting was in contrast to what they did outside. For instance, DMK candidate Poondi Kalaivanan almost launched his campaign from his house at Koradacheri in Tiruvarur district even before filing his nomination. He also went to the memorial of Anjugam Ammal – the mother of Karunanidhi – to pay his respects. Attempts to contact AMMK candidate S Kamaraj went in vain while the AIADMK was yet to finalise its candidate.

Deputy chief minister and AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam announced in Chennai that the party candidate would be made known in a day or two.