Nomination begins for bypoll; major parties still undecided

Madurai, June 1 (UNI) Filing the nomination for his 84th electoral contest, Dr K Padmarajan, who had never secured the deposit in any of them, led the pack of six Independents, who filed their papers today for the byelection to the Madurai West Assembly constituency scheduled for June 26.

Though, filing of nominations commenced today, the major political parties were yet to decide on their candidates. The bypoll was necessitated following the death of rebel AIADMK legislator S V Shanmugham on February 5.

Padmarajan (58) from Mettur, in his quest to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for contesting the most number of elections, filed his papers before the returning officer A Narayanamoorthy at the District Collectorate here.

The other candidates were S Dinakaran, who was formerly with the Forward Bloc, K P Raja, a former Youth Congress functionary from Chennai, M Selvam alias Thoothai Selvam, P Senthil Kumar and Syed Talib Alidha.

According to the election schedule, nominations would close on June eight. Scrutiny would be taken up on June nine and the last date for withdrawal is June 11. Counting of votes would be done on June 29.

Meanwhile, the DMDK of filmstar-politician Vijaykant suffered a jolt with one of its councillors in the City Corporation crossing sides and joining the DMK in the presence of M K Azhagiri, the Madurai-based son of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

With this, the strength of the DMDK in the Council had come down to six. Interestingly, ward 23 of councilor P Kannan, who deserted the DMDK, falls under the Madurai West Assembly constituency.

UNI