Chennai: Five assembly seats in Tamil Nadu have been vacant long enough that the clock is now the story. By-elections must be held before November 25, and M.K. Stalin has already put the DMK's machinery in place.
At a consultation at Anna Arivalayam, the party's headquarters, the DMK president met the district secretaries and senior leaders handling Tiruchy East, Karur, Perundurai, Viralimalai and Ambasamudram. He asked them to submit panels of possible candidates to the leadership and to step up constituency-level work, saying the party must be ready whenever the Election Commission announces dates.
Three of the five seats fell vacant for reasons that favour the ruling Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam. Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay won both Perambur and Tiruchy East and resigned from the latter. Karur and Viralimalai fell vacant after AIADMK MLAs M.R. Vijayabhaskar and C. Vijayabhaskar resigned and joined the TVK.
The legal queue is what everyone is watching. The Madras High Court has dismissed the DMK's election petition against S. Jayakumar's victory in Perundurai, clearing that bypoll. It has not yet ruled on the petitions for the other four. The court reopens after the Dasara holidays on Monday, and bypolls in the remaining seats depend on that decision.
The DMK's confidence comes from two recent by-elections, Madurantakam and Dharapuram, where it finished second and pushed the AIADMK to third place. In Perundurai this year, the AIADMK polled 35.03 per cent, the DMK 30.2 per cent and the TVK 29.64 per cent.
A four-cornered contest is expected, with the TVK, AIADMK, DMK and Naam Tamilar Katchi in the field. For the ruling party, the bypolls are a test of whether its assembly majority translates into votes on its own; for the DMK, of whether finishing second is the beginning of a recovery.