Sidelined All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader TTV Dinakaran, contesting as an independent candidate in the bye-polls for the RK Nagar constituency, was on Thursday given the pressure cooker as his poll symbol, PTI reported.

Dinakaran had asked for the hat symbol, but returning officer K Velusamy told PTI that a “free symbol was being alloted”. Dinakaran had unsuccessfully moved the Delhi High Court asking for the hat symbol, which the Election Commission had in March allotted to his faction of the AIADMK.

After getting the pressure cooker symbol, Dinakaran said, “I opted for the pressure cooker to give pressure to my rivals,” The Hindu reported.

The RK Nagar seat fell vacant after the death of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on December 5 last year. The elections are on December 21 and votes will be counted three days later.

A final list posted on the website of the Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer shows 72 nominations were accepted, 13 of them withdrew, leaving 59 candidates in the contest. The election panel had received 145 nomination papers, but 73, including those of Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Jayakumar and actor Vishal Krishna’s were rejected.

AIADMK presidium chairman E Madhusudanan, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Marudu Ganesh, BJP’s Karu Nagarajan and Dinakaran are among the prominent leaders in the fray.