DMK petitions EC seeking bypoll in 3 other assembly segments

The DMK Tuesday urged the Election Commission to hold byelections to three vacant assembly seats along with the voting for 18 other segments scheduled on April 18, claiming there was "no legally sustainable reason to omit them".

A memorandum to this effect was submitted to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora at the Election Commission office in New Delhi by a DMK delegation headed by party Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchi Siva, party sources said here.

"In all the three cases, there are no orders from any court restraining the ECI from conduction by-elections to the assembly constituencies. Mere pendency of an election petition is not a bar under law for conducting by-elections," DMK president M K Stalin said in the memorandum.

On March 10, the EC has announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections and bypolls to 18 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, leaving out the three segments which are also vacant.

State Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo had said bypolls were not scheduled for the seats as election petitions related to them were pending in the Madras High Court.

The DMK memorandum, a copy of which was released to media here, said the EC had conducted bypolls in the past despite pending election petitions.

"There is no legally sustainable reason as to why three constituencies alone have been omitted," it said.

At a meeting of its district secretaries, MPs, and MLAs here Monday, the DMK had adopted a resolution which said not holding bypolls to the three assembly constituencies was "anti-democratic."