Six seats, three states, one UT: voting under way as Vijay's TVK faces its first electoral test

Polling is under way in six Assembly constituencies across three states and a union territory, in by-elections that amount to the first electoral verdict on Tamil Nadu's new political order — and a wider test of ruling alliances elsewhere. Voters in Madurantakam and Dharapuram in Tamil Nadu, Nandigram and Rejinagar in West Bengal, Nagaon in Assam, and Thattanchavady in Puducherry are casting ballots from 7 AM to 6 PM on Tuesday. Counting in all six seats is scheduled for October 9. The spotlight is on the two Tamil Nadu seats, where the result is a prestige battle for Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, in power barely four months after the April 23 Assembly elections. Both Madurantakam in Chengalpattu district and Dharapuram in Tiruppur district — both reserved for Scheduled Castes — fell vacant after former AIADMK MLAs K. Maragatham Kumaravel and P. Sathyabama resigned on May 25 and joined the ruling TVK the same day. The Madras High Court declined to stay the polls, while orally warning that the situation should not become a 'mockery of democracy'. The contests are five-cornered. In Madurantakam, TVK's Maragatham Kumaravel faces the DMK's I. Paranthaman, AIADMK's Kanitha Sampath, the CPM's Suganthi and the NTK's Janakiraman among 27 candidates. In Dharapuram, TVK's P. Sathyabama is up against the DMK's S. Suganya, AIADMK's Banumathi, the CPI's Lakshmanan and the NTK's Karthika among 22 candidates — with the Left parties, though supportive of the TVK government, contesting separately against it. Vijay campaigned with unusual intensity for a sitting Tamil Nadu chief minister in a bypoll — addressing public meetings in Madurantakam on September 25 and leading a roadshow in Dharapuram on September 30. The opposition answered in kind. Campaigning in Dharapuram on October 2, DMK president M.K. Stalin branded Vijay a 'Reels CM', asking whether promotional reels and social-media publicity could ease the struggles of ordinary families. He attacked the TVK government over rising prices — visiting a grocery shop to make the point — and claimed the state's GST revenue had fallen for three consecutive months, alongside criticism of power supply, law and order and industrial development. AMMK general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran went further, calling a TVK government a 'curse' for Tamil Nadu and comparing it to the El Nino phenomenon. He demanded Election Commission action against legislators who resign within months of being elected, declaring: 'The Chief Minister is responsible for this by-election.' The Tamil Nadu government declared a public holiday in the two constituencies, and polling is being conducted under heavy security after the Election Commission ordered outsiders to vacate both seats and banned all campaigning until 6 AM on polling day.