Chennai: Six Rajya Sabha members from Tamil Nadu are likely to get elected unopposed to the Upper House with no party interested in forcing a contest. The AIADMK, which has 134 members in the new assembly, will be able to elect 4 members on its own, while the DMK can elect two members on its own strength of 89 MLAs.
The DMK has announced R S Bharathy and T K S Elangovan for the two vacancies while the AIADMK is yet to announce candidates. The Congress, whose member E M Sudharsana Natchiappan, is retiring will not be able to fill the vacancy since it has only 8 members. The national party was hoping that it would get one seat from the DMK to accommodate senior leader P Chidambaram. But with the Congress biting the dust in the recent elections, the DMK unilaterally announced candidates for the two seats.
Six members – 3 from AIADMK, 2 from DMK and 1 from Congress – are retiring on June 29. Rajya Sabha members are usually elected without any hitch since the parties nominate number of candidates according to their strength in the Assembly.
The members who would be retiring on June 29 are AIADMK floor leader in Rajya Sabha A Navaneethakrishnan, Manoj Paul Pandian and Rabi Bernard, K P Ramalingam and S Thangavelu of the DMK and Congress’ E M Sudharsana Natchiappan.
Filing of nominations for the elections would begin on May 24, while May 31 will be the last date for filing of the papers. While the nominations would be scrutinised on June 1, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is June 3.
The AIADMK is set to get an enhanced presence in the Rajya Sabha by sending four members as against three members retiring from the Upper House. Though the AIADMK’s strength would go up only by one seat, the ruling BJP at the Centre is happy with the fact that the Dravidian party will have 13 MPs from next month, which would help them in getting crucial bills passed.
AIADMK has been supporting the BJP, which is struggling to cobble up a majority in the Upper House dominated by the Congress. It is well-known that the BJP top brass — from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to poarliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu – share excellent rapport with Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
