PUDUCHERRY: S Selvaganabathy of the BJP who filed his nomination papers on Wednesday to contest the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Puducherry is all set to be elected unopposed.
Supported by the AINRC Congress, the BJP ally in the NDA, he filed his nominations just an hour before the closure of filing nomination. Chief Minister N Rangasamy and Home Minister A Namassivayam who are among his proposers participated in the filing of nomination papers to the Legislative Assembly Secretary R Mounissamy.
None of the opposition parties have put up a candidate to oppose Selvaganabathy. The strength of the BJP and its allies is 19 (BJP-6, AINRC-10 and Independents supporting BJP-3), while the DMK-Congress opposition is eight, (DMK-6, Congress-2) among the 30 elected members in the Legislative Assembly.
Though five others filed nominations, which include four independents and Dr Hariharan from the Puducherry People's Rights Party, a registered party, yet their nomination papers would get rejected after scrutiny, as these are not valid nominations. This is because they have not fulfilled the mandatory requirement of including 10 proposers each while filing the nomination papers. Their deposit will however be refunded by the Election Commission.
The scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on September 23 and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is September 27. After the withdrawal period is over, he would be declared elected on September 27.
When elected, he will be the BJP’s first MP from Puducherry. Though a few BJP leaders like Lalitha Kumaramangalam contested the Lok Sabha polls from Puducherry, none were successful.
The tenure of the present Rajya Sabha member N Gokulakrishnan (AIADMK) ends on October 6.