Chennai: All the six candidates, including Senior Congress leader and Former Union Minister P.Chidambaram, three from the ruling DMK and two from the Opposition AIADMK, were on Friday declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu.
Since there were only six candidates in fray to fill up six seats that would fall vacant on June 29, all the six were declared unopposed on the last date for withdrawal of nominations today, Returning Officer and State Legislative Assembly Secretary K.Srinivasan told reporters.
A total of 13 candidates, including seven independents have filed their papers for the June 10 polls. During scrutiny, the nomination papers of six official candidates, including Chidambaram and R.Girirajan, S.Shanmugasundaram and KRN Rajesh Kumar (all DMK) and former Law Minister C.Ve.Shanmugam and R.Dharmar (both AIADMK) were found in order and the papers of the remaining seven were rejected.
On the last date of withdrawals today, all the six official candidates were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha. Rajesh Kumar was elected for a second consecutive term.
Of the total six seats that would fall vacant on June 29, the DMK fielded candidates in three seats and allotted one to its ally, Congress, while the AIADMK contested the remaining two seats.
The DMK and its allies have a combined strength of 159 MLAs, including 18 from Congress, in the 234-member Assembly, and won all the four seats, while the AIADMK Front (75 MLAs) won the remaining two seats, with its former allies, the PMK and the BJP, which have five and four MLAs respectively, extending their support to the AIADMK.
The term of office of six members –three each from the DMK and the
AIADMK–elected from Tamil Nadu is due to expire on June 29.
The six members are T.K.S.Elangovan, R.S.Bharathi, K.R.N.Rajeshkumar (all DMK), A.Navaneethakrishnan, A.Vijayakumar and S.R.Balasubramoniyan
