Madras High Court rejects DMK candidate’s election petition over Perundurai constituency

Thoppu Venkatachalam; S. Jayakumar | Photo Credit: M. Govarthan; Special Arrangement The Madras High Court on Tuesday (September 8, 2026) rejected an election petition filed by DMK candidate for the Perundurai Assembly constituency, Thoppu Venkatachalam alias N.D. Vekatachalam, challenging the victory of S. Jayakumar, who had contested as an AIADMK candidate but joined the ruling TVK after resigning from his MLA post.It may be noted that Mr. Venkatachalam recently quit the DMK, after he was removed from the post of the party’s Erode Central district secretary.Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy allowed an application filed by Mr. Jayakumar, through his counsel A.P. Suryaprakasam, to reject the election petition. The applicant had won the seat by a margin of 9,693 votes. He had secured 70,302 votes against 60,609 votes garnered by the election petitioner, but submitted his resignation to Legislative Assembly Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar on May 25, 2026, before joining the TVK.The dismissal of the application/rejection of the election petition gains significance in light of the fact that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had decided not to conduct bypolls to five (including Perundurai) out of the seven vacant constituencies in Tamil Nadu until the disposal of the election petitions pertaining to those constituencies, in view of a dictum laid down by the Supreme Court.Responding to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by K. Venkatachalapathy of Tirunelveli, through his counsel V.R. Shanmuganathan, the ECI told the High Court last month that “the commission does not propose to announce or notify bye-elections until the election petitions challenging the election of the returned candidates in the five constituencies are decided.”Explaining the reasons for such a decision, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Archana Patnaik had said that the Supreme Court, in Election Commission of India versus Telangana Rashtra Samithi (2010), had ordered that a bye-election should not be conducted for a constituency if an election petitioner had sought to declare himself/herself as the returned candidate after nullifying the victory of an MLA/MP.Therefore, the ECI had said that it shall not conduct bypolls to the Tiruchi East, Perundurai, Ambasamudram, Viralimalai, and Karur Assembly constituencies, with respect to which election petitions, along with a plea to declare the election petitioners as returned candidates, were pending. It had notified bye-elections only for Madurantakam and Dharapuram constituencies since no election petition had been filed with respect to them.Though Justice Chakravarthy had now rejected the election petition regarding the Perundurai constituency, the order passed by him was subject to appeal before the Supreme Court and therefore, the ECI might choose to wait for the outcome of the appeal proceedings before taking a final call on conducting a bypoll in this constituency too. Published - September 08, 2026 11:28 am IST