Politicians from Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK and main opposition DMK have started campaigning for the Vellore Lok Sabha constituency, scheduled to go to polls on August 5.
DMK president M K Stalin launched his campaign from Saturday for his party’s candidate Anand, while Chief Minister and AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami and top ministers are campaigning for A C Shanmugam.
The election to the seat was originally to be held on April 18 alongside the other 38 constituencies in Tamil Nadu, but was cancelled by the Election Commission after cash seizures in the district, which would “severely jeopardise the conduct of a free-and-fair election”.
The counting for the seat will now be held on August 9.
Vellore, with a sizable population of minority voters, is known as the home turf of DMK candidate Anand’s father Duraimurugan. However, the AIADMK hopes that the election being conducted now will help them win by deploying maximum ministers besides the support of NDA partners.
The two smaller Tamil parties — T T V Dhinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) and Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) are not fielding candidates for the polls.
Haasan said holding the election without any progress in cases registered against those caught and raided for keeping excess amount of cash, allegedly for bribing voters, will reduce the confidence of the people in the EC. Meanwhile, Dhinakaran has said that his party will not contest the polls as the registration process of the AMMK is still pending before the EC.