22 assembly seats vacant in TN with death of Sulur MLA Kanagaraj

The sitting MLA of Sulur constituency in Coimbatore district R Kangaraj passed away on March 21 due to cardiac arrest. Kangaraj was considered one of the senior members of the AIADMK. He was 64.

With his death, the number of vacant seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly rises to 22. While the ruling government has a comfortable tally of 114 seats (halfway mark for current assembly strength is 107/213), the by-elections would re-define this.

If the by-elections are held in all the 22 seats, the new halfway mark for the majority would be 117 seats, an additional 3 seats from the current tally. In case of a tie, the Assembly speaker has the power to vote.

Apart from the 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs who defected, the death of leaders J Jayalalithaa, M Karunanidhi and the disqualification of Hosur MLA K Balakrishna Reddy led to 21 vacant assembly seats.

Since 2016, Kanagraj is the third MLA to have died of cardiac arrest in the ruling AIADMK. SM Seenival who won the Thiruparankundram constituency in May 2016, died within days after being elected in May 2016. A K Bose who won the by-election for the seat in November 2016 too died of heart attack in August 2018.