DMK’s MLA from Vikravandi, K Radhamani, passed on Friday morning following an illness. According to reports, the MLA had been ill for some time and had been receiving treatment at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) in Puducherry. He was 70.
Known to be a close aide of senior DMK leader and former Minister K Ponmudy, Radhamani won the 2016 Assembly elections from the Vikravandi constituency in Villupuram district.
DMK President and Leader of the Opposition MK Stalin is expected to visit the union territory to pay his respects later in the day.
K Radhamani is the sixth MLA to die in office since the 2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections were held.
Soon after the state elections in May 2016, Thiruparankundram AIADMK MLA SM Seenivel passed away after suffering a stroke hours before the first Assembly session. Bye-polls following his death in November 2016 saw AIADMK’s AK Bose emerging victorious. However, Bose himself passed away while in office in August last year.
In December 2016, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa passed away after a 75-day period of hospitalisation at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai. Following her death, elections were announced to her RK Nagar assembly constituency in April 2017. However, the elections were called off following rampant cash-for-votes allegations in the area. When the elections were finally held in December 2017, independent candidate and nephew of Jayalalithaa’s close aide VK Sasikala, TTV Dhinakaran, won the seat.
In August 2018, former chief minister and DMK chief M Karunanidhi passed away following a prolonged illness that had kept him out of active politics for nearly two years. The Thiruvarur MLA had been in and out of hospital since December 2016 and breathed his last on August 7 at Kauvery Hospital in Chennai.
In March this year, R Kanagaraj, the AIADMK MLA from Sulur Assembly constituency, passed away after a cardiac arrest.
Tamil Nadu would face two more bye-polls – to the Vikravandi assembly constituency as well as the Nanguneri assembly constituency, which was recently vacated by MP-elect H Vasanthakumar. Elections to the Vellore Lok Sabha constituency, which were countermanded in May this year, are also due.