Kanniyakumari LS seat vacancy notified

The Lok Sabha Secretariat in a notification said, “H Vasanthkumar, an elected member of Lok Sabha from the Kanniyakumari Parliamentary constituency of Tamil Nadu passed away at Chennai on August 28 and consequently his seat in the Lok Sabha has become vacant with effect from that date.”

The notification, announcing that Kanniyakumari seat was vacant, was also published in the gazette of the Union government.

Vasanthakumar, the deceased Congress MP was the founder of popular home appliances retail chain Vasanth & Co, died on August 28 after he tested positive for COVID-19 at a corporate hospital after several weeks of treatment.

The MP, who was admitted to the hospital on August 10, was the first sitting Member of Parliament to succumb to the deadly virus.

While announcing his death, the hospital said he was treated in critical care unit by a team of doctors for ‘severe COVID pneumonia.’

“‘Despite all active medical measures his condition deteriorated gradually due to COVID-19 complications and passed away,” the hospital statement said.

He was the first MP from the state to die of coronavirus and the second lawmaker after DMK MLA J Anbazhagan who also succumbed to the virus on June 10.

Former Union minister Pon Radhakrishan, who lost to Vasanthakumar in 2019 LS elections, is likely to be fielded by the BJP again, whenever the EC conducts the bypoll to the Kanniyakumari Lok Sabha constituency.

Speculations are rife that the Congress high command might field Vijay Vasanth, the elder son of Vasanthakumar for Kanniyakumari seat when the bypoll was held. Vijay Vasanth had acted in several Tamil films and he campaigned for his father in the 2019 LS polls. Talking to reporters at Nagercoil, Vijay Vasanth said his father’s friends want him to contest the by-election. “Being a member of Congress, I am ready to contest from Kanniyakumari, if the high command decides to field me,” he said. It may be noted that the TNCC had already made it clear that it would contest from Kanniyakumari as it was earlier allotted to it in the DMK alliance. TNCC president K S Alagiri said that it was natural that the seat was allotted to the Congress.