House passes obituary references to two DMK MLAs, Anbazhagan

Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal and legislators also observed two minutes of silence and prorogued the House to meet again on Wednesday to take up the discussions on grants on budget.

With the demise of two MLAs, the Assembly seats of Gudiyatham and Tiruvottriyur now remains vacant. According to public election department sources, the demise of the sitting MLAs had also been briefed to the Election Commission of India and the usual practice is to hold elections so that the vacancies are filled within six months. With fourteen months to go for the next Assembly polls scheduled in May 2021, the Election Commission will take a final call on the matter, sources said.

Kathavarayan died in Chennai after a brief illness and former minister KPP Samy died due to heart ailment. DMK general secretary Anbazhagan had also served the Assembly as its MLA for nine terms.

With this, so far in the current Assembly, four members from the AIADMK and six from the DMK, including former chief ministers J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi had died since May 2016.

Ironically, DMK MLA Kathavarayan and AIADMK MLA Bose got elected in by-elections, but passed away without serving the full term. Tamil Nadu has also witnessed maximum number of by-polls in the past four years due to the deaths and disqualification of 18 MLAs, who supported rebel AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran.