Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa out of RK Nagar bypoll race as EC rejects nomination

Deepa Jayakumar, the niece of late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa, will not be able to contest the upcoming RK Nagar bypoll.

The byelection, which is being held to fill the assembly seat vacated by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, has already seen many controversies and had to be deferred earlier this year after major allegations of voters being bribed surfaced.

Adding a fresh twist, the Election Commission today rejected Deepa Jayakumar's nomination form for the RK Nagar bypoll. Deepa's nomination was rejected one of the forms accompanying her nomination paper was improperly filled.

Form 26I - the document in question - is essentially an affidavit and the Election Commission rejected Deepa's submission after finding that she had not filled in columns relating to value of her assets.

On November 24, the Election Commission announced that voters in Chennai's Dr Radhakrishnan (RK) Nagar will elect a new MLA on December 21. The constituency has gone unrepresented ever since the death of Jayalalithaa last year.

A by-poll had been scheduled to be held in RK Nagar on April 12 this year, but it was cancelled after Income Tax raids uncovered evidence of massive corruption and bribery during election campaigning.

The bypoll comes during a time of severe infighting within the AIADMK. VK Sasikala, currently in jail after being convicted in a disproportionate assests case, and her nephew TTV Dhinakaram lead one faction of the party while on the other side are Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and his predecessor O Panneerselvam.

The Election Commission recently ruled the Palaniswami-Panneerselvam camp will be allowed to use the name 'All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam' (AIADMK) and its iconic two-leaves symbol, a ruling that worked as a necessary psychological booster for the OPS-EPS camp.

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