NEW DELHI: Taking a firm view, the Election Commission on Sunday night cancelled the April 12 bypoll to the R K Nagar Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu, saying the electoral process has been "seriously vitiated" by parties through use of money power.After several rounds of meeting with Tamil Nadu election officials, the Election Commission decided to rescind the election notification.It said the by-election will be held in "due course when the vitiating effect created by the distribution of money and gift items to allure the electors...gets removed with the passage of time". The AIADMK (Amma) faction is led by V K Sasikala . The other faction is led by former chief minister O Panneerselvam. "Many complaints were received by the ECI on possibilities of inducement of electors by distributing cash and gifts in innovative forms like tokens, prepaid phone recharge coupons, newspaper subscription, milk tokens, money transfer in no frill accounts in banks and even mobile wallet payment to mobile numbers," the EC said. "Generally in an assembly constituency, only 3 FSTs (Flying Squad Teams) and 3 SSTs (Static Surveillance Teams) are deployed during any election, but for the R K Nagar constituency, the deployment of these squads was increased manifold and total of 61 teams were deployed keeping in view the sensitiveness of the constituency and past experience."

Source: Times of India April 09, 2017 20:36 UTC