CHENNAI: The four AIADMK nominees—R Vaithilingam, A Navaneethakrishnan, A Vijayakumar, and former Union Minister SR Balasubramanian—filed their papers on Friday for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha.
They took the oath and filed their nominations before AMP Jamaludeen, Assembly secretary and returning officer at the Secretariat. The ministers, including O Panneerselvam, P Thangamani, K Raju, C Vijaya Baskar and OS Manian, were present when the nominations were filed.
The biennial elections are being held for six Rajya Sabha seats for Tamil Nadu. Already, the DMK nominees RS Bharathi and TKS Elangovan have filed their nominations. As the number of vacancies and the number of nominees were equal, all the six were likely to be elected without contest.
The last date for filing nominations is May 31 and scrutiny will take place on June 1 and the last date for withdrawal is June 3. If more file papers in the coming days, election will be held on June 11.
However, the AIADMK’s 134 tally has put the party in an advantageous position. Since it has 36 MLAs more than the DMK-led front in the Assembly, in the second preference vote, the ruling party can win the fourth seat also.
But despite having 30 more votes, apart from winning two Rajya Sabha seats, the DMK cannot win the third seat for want of four more votes. Understandably, keeping this fact in mind, Karunanidhi announced only two candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections.
Sources said since polling in Aravakurichi and Thanjavur had been postponed to June 13, two days after the biennial elections to six RS seats, these votes won’t make a difference to the results of RS elections. Further, even minus these two votes, the value for winning one more Rajya Sabha seat won’t change from 34.
The six-year term of the following six Rajya Sabha members from Tamil Nadu ends on June 29: KP Ramalingam and S Thangavelu (DMK), A Navaneethakrishnan, Paul Manoj Pandian and A William Rabi Bernard (AIADMK) and E M Sudarsana Natchiappan (Congress).
There are 18 Rajya Sabha members from the state. For six, the term ends on July 24, 2019 and for six more members, the term ends on April 2, 2020.
Bizman likely to be JD(S) pick for RS
Bengaluru: JD(S) is set to maintain its tradition of fielding resourceful business persons to enter the Rajya Sabha. Mangaluru-based businessman B M Farookh is emerging as the front-runner this time to get JD(S) support to make it to the House of elders in the Parliament. The elections will be held on June 11. Though many more are in contention, the JD(S)’s preference this time to back locals, preferably from the minority community, is said to have given the edge to Farookh. Earlier, the JD(S) had supported Rajeev Chandrashekar, Kupendra Reddy, Mam Ramaswamy and Vijay Mallya for Rajya Sabha seats.