The Election Commission of India on Thursday gave an undertaking in the Supreme Court to conduct bypolls to Aravakurichi, Ottapidaram and Tirupparankundram Assembly constituencies within “reasonable period”.
The poll body made the submission before a Bench led by Justice S.A. Bobde, which was hearing a petition filed by the DMK seeking a direction to the ECI to notify the bypolls and publish the election schedule for the three constituencies.
The DMK claimed that it moved the apex court as a “stakeholder in democracy”. It said the ECI notified bypolls for 18 of the 21 vacant Assembly seats to be held on April 18 along with the Lok Sabha polls in the State. The court merely accepted the undertaking of the poll body and left the finer points to the ECI’s discretion.
In the Tirupparankundram segment, the election of AIADMK MLA A.K. Bose was set aside by the High Court recently. DMK candidate P. Saravanan had challenged Bose’s election. In the interregnum, Bose died.