Chennai: The newly-elected Congress MP of Kanyakumari, H Vasanthakumar, has resigned his MLA seat in the Tamilnadu Assembly.
While there was speculation yesterday about Vasanthakumar giving up his MLA post, this morning, he met Speaker S Dhanapal and tendered his resignation.
Vasanthakumar was elected from the Nanguneri Assembly constituency in 2016 but decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections this year from Kanyakumari.
The businessman-politician won by a massive margin of 2.59 lakh votes in the general elections from Kanyakumari, beating incumbent MP and Central Minister Pon Radhakrishnan, representing the BJP.
The question now rises about the by-poll that his resignation from MLA post will lead to. It has to be held within six months. There is speculation as to whether the Congress will retain the seat or hand it over to senior ally DMK.
Speaking to mediapersons after tendering his resignation, Vasanthakumar said the seat would be retained by the Congress to contest in the by-election. But in the same breath he said the decision to whether give it to DMK will be taken by the party high command in Delhi.