KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 — The Padang Serai federal seat election will now be held on December 7, after the death of defending incumbent M Karupaiya required the process to be started anew.

Election Commission chairman Tan Sri Ghani Salleh said the meeting held today also decided that nomination would be conducted on November 24 while early voting would take place on December3.

"Application for overseas and local postal voting is open through online from November18 (today) until November 22,” he said in a statement today.

Ghani also said the EC will be using the same electoral roll as the 15th general election.

On Wednesday, Karupaiya reportedly died after being hospitalised following a fall he suffered on the campaign trail.

He had been the favourite to reclaim the seat from his competitors Barisan Nasional’s Datuk C. Sivarraajh, Perikatan Nasional’s Azman Nasrudin, Pejuang’s Hamzah Abdul Rahman, Warisan’s Bakri Hashim, and independent candidate Sreanandha Rao.

He had attended a mass political rally in Kulim on November14, where he looked out of breath towards the end of the event.