The election fever is back in Tamil Nadu and in what would probably be the last bypoll ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the political parties in the state have been beefing up their campaigns to triumph the Erode East bypoll that has been scheduled to take place next month. 

The bypoll has come after the shocking demise of Erode East MLA Thirumahan Everaa of the Congress party, who died of heart attack at the age of 46 on January 4. Following his demise, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly declared the Erode East seat as vacant and as per the election norm, the bypoll must be conducted in six months from when the seat was announced vacant. 

On Wednesday, the Election Commission has announced the date for the Erode East bypoll. As per the announcement, the bypoll for the Erode East constituency will be held on February 27, 2023, and the counting of votes will take place on March 2, 2023, during which the results will be announced. The filing of nomination will begin on January 31 and the last date to file nominations will be February 7. The scrutiny of nominations will take place on February 8 and the last date to withdraw the nomination will be February 10. 

As the bypoll is just a month away, the political parties in the state are in the process of pacing their campaign trails, but the parties are caught up with a real problem of finalizing the candidacy. At this high time of political furore, we take you through what's happening with the political parties. Inspite of the political pragmatism that the ruling part will win the bypolls to the assembly, there has been a strife between the top two parties and their allies. 

In the 2021 polls, DMK has awarded the Erode East seat to its ally Congress party and with the Congress ticket, Thirumahan Everaa won the race by defeating Yuvaraj, who was the candidate of Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), which is an ally of the ADMK. As the Erode East had a clash between the allied parties of the top rivals DMK and ADMK in 2021, that remains a big problem for DMK and ADMK when both of them are vying to lock horns. 

According to our sources, both the allied parties - Congress (DMK) and TMC (ADMK) have been in talks with the leaders for a possible rematch, both the DMK and ADMK are seemingly showing a hard hand to their allies. While the Tamil Nadu Congress Chief KS Alagiri said that the party will contest in Erode East to retain its strength in the assembly, the DMK is yet to decide in this matter. If the DMK awards the Congress to contest again, the latter is planning to field a family member of Thirumahan Everaa, who was the son of former Union Minister EVKS Elangovan and the great-grandson of Thanthai Periyar. 

In that case, the Congress is planning to field Thirumahan Everaa's wife Poornima. As there is no green signal from DMK, the grand old party is assaying to win the seat. On Thursday, KS Alagiri said, "Erode East is our constituency. It is the constituency that we won. We have asked our allied parties DMK, MDMK, VCK to extend their support to us." The sources say that if ADMK contests directly in the bypoll, the DMK would jump into the battle to defeat the former at its stronghold of Kongu belt. 

On the other hand, the ADMK has been beleaguered with the political chaos and crisis over the leadership. While ADMK's Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) and O Panneerselvam (OPS) are staging a legal battle to win the party's leadership, EPS plans to contest directly to display the support for his leadership in the party than his rival OPS. As OPS is still fighting for the party and is still regarded as the ADMK's coordinator, the ADMK can contest the bypoll with its 'Two leaves' symbol only if OPS gives his consent. 

In his rival with EPS, OPS would less likely consent to the former's plan. With the view of winning the Two leaves symbol for his faction ahead of the bypoll, EPS is planning to approach the Election Commission to remove the trouble. However, EPS is also pushed to speak with the ally TMC, which is mulling contesting again against the Congress. TMC leader GK Vasan has met EPS and a league of ADMK leaders had also met Vasan and discussed whether TMC can incur the expenses for the bypoll.

After meeting EPS, Vasan said that his party will work to the triumph of the alliance and his statement gave a hint that whether ADMK has decided to contest directly. The TMC leaders believe that Erode East will be awarded to the party again and the party cadres in Erode had passed a resolution asking the ADMK to award the Erode East constituency to TMC. We can expect a hard fight between the political parties and with the voters' verdict from Erode East, the Tamil Nadu parties would build their campaigns for the big battle next year.