The non-conduct of bye-elections to five Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu for an indefinite period will deprive several lakhs of people in those constituencies of democratically elected MLAs to represent their interests, causes, and grievances, Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has told the Madras High Court.

The submission has been made in a counter affidavit served upon advocate V.R. Shanmuganathan, representing public interest litigation petitioner K. Venkatachalapathy of Tirunelveli, who had obtained an interim stay on July 10, 2026, on the conduct of bypolls to the Tiruchi East, Perundurai, Ambasamudram, Viralimalai, and Karur constituencies.

Urging the court to vacate the stay, the Chief Minister said that not conducting the bypolls may benefit the individuals who had lost the polls and filed election petitions with respect to those constituencies, but it would ultimately end up causing great harm to the voters who would go unrepresented in the Legislative Assembly.

Asserting that the petitioner’s case was actually against public interest, Mr. Vijay said that the litigant, not connected in any way to the elections in the five constituencies, appeared to have filed the case only to wage a proxy war on behalf of those who had lost the polls and filed election petitions to declare them as returned candidates.

The Chief Minister also said that there was no chance of the election petitioners getting declared as the returned candidates, especially when more than two candidates had contested in the 2026 general elections in all the five constituencies, which had subsequently fallen vacant due to the resignation of their respective MLAs.

It was also brought to the notice of the court that in four constituencies, except Karur, the MLAs had resigned much before the filing of the election petitions and hence, a distinction must be made with respect to the seats that fell vacant before and after the filing of the election petitions.

The Chief Minister said he got elected from the Perambur and Tiruchi East constituencies and chose to resign from the latter seat. The resignation was submitted on May 10, 2026, to the then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and was accepted on the same day.

However, the DMK’s defeated candidate S. Inigo Irudayaraj had filed an election petition in the High Court with respect to Tiruchi East only on June 17, 2026, after the returned candidate had ceased to exist as per the law and could not be resurrected for the purpose of maintaining an election petition, Mr. Vijay added.