By-elections are set to be held in the Madurantakam and Dharapuram assembly constituencies. The left parties that supported the formation of the TVK government are contesting separately. In this situation, CPM’s Shanmugam campaigned in Madurantakam in support of the CPM candidate Sugandhi. Following that, at a press conference, he said, “This election was not created naturally or organically. It is an election forcibly imposed on the people. This by-election has come about solely because the MLA who won in the last general election resigned from office within just 20 days of being elected and switched to the TVK party.

The reason he gives for leaving, saying that AIADMK and DMK tried to form a coalition government, is completely unacceptable. If there had been a difference in ideology, he could have continued to function independently without resigning from his post. Such candidates who irresponsibly resigned for political gain and betrayed the people who voted for them should be defeated.
People must put an end to the actions of such individuals who repeatedly contest elections and then irresponsibly resign after winning. The AIADMK-BJP alliance, which contested against each other in the last general election, has come together again and is entering the fray. The main slogan of the Left is that they must be defeated. Even if the support given for the formation of a TVK government continues, their victory in these two constituencies will not bring about any change in government. Therefore, instead of turning the Legislative Assembly into a battleground, it is essential to increase the number of Marxist and Left legislators who will speak as the true voice of the people.

Leaders including Mamata Banerjee and Uddhav Thackeray have strongly condemned the arbitrary actions of Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Through the SIR exercises carried out across the country, more than 150 million voters have been removed from the voter list. This injustice has taken place in a manner never seen before in India’s electoral history.
It has now come to light that Gyanesh Kumar acted unilaterally, disregarding the views of the other two election commissioners, and that the other commissioners have also formally objected in writing to this. Gyanesh Kumar should be immediately removed from office for turning the autonomous Election Commission into a puppet of the central government.

The root cause of such confusion and fraud is the overturning of the historic verdict delivered by the Supreme Court, which had said that election commissioners should be appointed by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India, thereby paving the way for the ruling party’s dominance. Therefore, new election commissioners should be appointed immediately on the basis of the Supreme Court’s verdict," he said.
