CHENNAI: MNM president Kamal Haasan, three candidates put up by the ruling DMK and two candidates nominated by opposition party AIADMK are all set to be declared elected to the Rajya Sabha unopposed, with the nominations of other candidates getting rejected on Tuesday.
Returning Officer (RO) and Additional Secretary to the Tamil Nadu Assembly, B Subramaniyam, after the scrutiny of 13 nominations filed, accepted the nominations of six candidates – Kamal Haasan; DMK’s Rajya Sabha candidates - P Wilson, Rajathi (a) Poet Salma and S R Sivalingam; and AIADMK candidates - I S Inbadurai and M Dhanapal - as valid.
The remaining nominations from seven independent candidates were rejected for failing to adhere to various stipulated conditions. Since the number of vacancies and the number of candidates are equal, the RO will be declaring the six as elected to RS when the deadline for withdrawal of nominations passes on Thursday.
Meanwhile, former AIADMK functionaries V Pugazhendi and S Surya Moorthi, operating under the banner of AIADMK Coordination Committee, submitted representations to the RO urging him to reject the nominations of the two AIADMK candidates.
They cited their petitions, demanding the freezing of AIADMK’s two leaves symbol, pending before the ECI as the reason for it. The Returning Officer told TNIE that the representations of the two have been forwarded to the ECI through Chief Electoral Officer Archana Patnaik, and the commission would take the final call.