Puzzling: Why were three assembly seats left out?

The Election Commission’s decision not to hold byelections to the assembly segments of Aravakurichi, Ottapidaram and Thirupparankundram along with the rest of the 18 vacant seats raises questions.

In the three seats, the petitioners, who had contested unsuccessfully against the AIADMK candidates, had sought setting aside of the elections of Senthil Balaji, R Sundararaj and A K Bose. None of the three is an MLA now. The first two got disqualified under the anti-defection law and Bose died eight months ago. There is no stay from any court on holding byelections to these constituencies. But the EC has taken refuge under technicalities to defer these bypolls.



State chief electoral officer Satyabrata Sahoo disconnected the call after initially coming on line when TOI contacted him to ask why the three seats were excluded.

The commission, normally, would not take a risk and hold byelections in constituencies where election-related cases are pending, said former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswamy. “The EC would have sought legal opinion before postponing byelections in three segments. What if a month after the byelection is held, the court passes an order that adversely affects the byelection? What if the candidate who has challenged the election of the MLA is declared winner by the court? Though such instances are rare, they are not unheard of. The people who filed the cases should have withdrawn the cases (after two MLAs got disqualified and one died),” said Gopalaswamy. The Election Commission’s stand in this case is perverse, said senior advocate K M Vijayan. “Notwithstanding the petitions filed by unsuccessful candidates (in the three segments) under Section 100 of the Representation of the People Act, the speaker of the assembly disqualified two MLAs as per the provisions of the 10th Schedule. It was unsuccessfully challenged by the MLAs in the Madras high court and, more importantly, they did not file an appeal in the Supreme Court. When they have already been disqualified, these cases are mere formalities. The verdicts cannot reverse the disqualification of the two MLAs under the 10th Schedule. Similarly, in the case of Thirupparankundram, after the death of A K Bose, the seat has automatically fallen vacant. It is strange that the EC has failed to understand this simple logic,” said Vijayan.

Going by the EC’s own logic, if pending cases are a reason for not holding byelections, it needs to explain on what basis it has ordered byelection to the Hosur assembly constituency. Former minister P Balakrishna Reddy, who got disqualified after a special court sentenced him to three years in jail in a 20-year-old riot case, has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court.