Congress, AINRC nominees file nominations forbypoll

Formerlegislator A John Kumar on Monday filed his nominationas the ruling Congress nominee for the October 21 byelection to Kamaraj Nagar Assembly segment here.

John Kumar was earlier elected to the territorial Assembly in June 2016.

He quit the post in September that year to enable senior Congress leader V Narayanasamy (present Chief Minister) contest the byelection in November, as Narayanasamy first became Chief Minister without being member of the Assembly.

The opposition AINRC nominee Bhuvaneswaran alias Bhuvana also filed the nomination, so did Vetriselvan, a candidate of the Makkal Munnetra Congress, launched recently by former Home Minister P Kannan.

Monday was the last day to file the nominations and in all 18 candidates including Independents and a woman candidate have filed the nominations since the process of election began on September 23.

Scrutiny of nominations has been scheduled for Tuesday while the last date to withdraw nominations is October 3.

The byelection has been necessitated after the incumbent Congress legislator V Vaithilingam quit the post following his election to Lok Sabha in April this year.

The bypoll would be a straight fight between the ruling Congress and the opposition AINRC.