By-polls to RK Nagar should be held by year-end, rules Madras High Court

The Madras High Court has said that by-polls to the RK Nagar constituency here should be held before December 31.

The seat fell vacant following the death of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in December 2016.

Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar made the observation while disposing of a writ petition filed by the DMK, represented by its organising secretary RS Bharathi, who sought a direction to remove bogus voters before holding the polls.

The court said that an order was not required as election officials have removed 45,819 voters from the rolls while the DMK wanted only 44,999 entries to be deleted.

Elections for RK Nagar constituency were earlier scheduled for April 12. However, the Election Commission (EC) cancelled it following allegations that sums of money were distributed in a vote-for-cash scam.

Just before the election, the Income Tax department seized documents from State Health Minister C Vijayabaskar claiming that ₹89 crore was distributed by the faction led by jailed AIADMK chief VK Sasikala, whose nephew TTV Dhinakaran was one of the candidates in the fray for the April 12 polls.

Meanwhile, the EC admitted DMK contentions that there are 45,000 bogus voters in the constituency, and filed a report that 45,819 bogus voters have been removed from the electoral roll.

The large-scale deletion occurred due to frequent migration of urban public and dead electors, said a letter from the District Election Officer and Commissioner, Greater Chennai Corporation, to the Chief Electoral Officer and Principal Secretary to Government, Public (Elections) Department.

The letter said that deletion was done after 100 per cent field verification by 256 booth level officers, further super checked by 25 supervisors and cursory verification by the Assistant Electoral registration officer and the Electoral Registration officer of RK Nagar constituency.

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