The tie between the seven candidates will be resolved through ballot
Chennai: Seven nominations for the biennial Rajya Sabha elections from Tamil Nadu were filed on Thursday for the filling up the six regular vacancies that have risen following the expiry of terms for six sitting members though the possibility for holding a ballot to eliminate one of them is ruled as the last minute nomination of the secretary of PMK founder S Ramadoss might not stand scrutiny.
Going by their strength in the Assembly, whose members would be electing the Rajya Sabha candidates, the AIADMK has the numbers to nominate two candidates and the DMK four. Accordingly, sitting member M Thambidurai and Anbumani Ramadoss, heading a breakaway faction of PMK, filed their papers as AIADMK nominees on the last day for nominations on Thursday.
Trichi Siva and Constantine Ravindran belonging to the DMK also filed the nominations while the DMK had given away the two other seats to the DMDK and the Congress as part of the seat-sharing agreements for the Assembly polls. So L K Sudeesh, on behalf of DMDK, and Christopher Tilak, on behalf of Congress, filed their papers.
Just before the closing of nominations at 3 pm, when it looked that the candidates would be declared elected unopposed, Swaminathan, a secretary of Ramadoss, rushed in with his papers that had the signatures of two PMK MLAs supporting the senior Ramadoss while is mandatory that 10 MLAs proposed a Rajya Sabha candidate.
So in all likelihood, the nomination of Swaminathan would be rejected during scrutiny on Friday, leaving the other six candidates in the fray to be elected unopposed. If the nomination of Swaminathan is accepted, the tie between the seven candidates will be resolved through ballot.
