Chennai : The filing of nominations for the June 10 biennial elections to fill six Rajya Sabha seats from the Tamilnadu Assembly that would fall vacant on June 29, began on Tuesday with the issuing of the notification.
The notification was issued by State Legislative Assembly Secretary and Returning Officer K.Srinivasan.
The last date for filing of nominations is May 31 and the scrutiny will take place the next day (1 June).
The last date for withdrawal is June 3 and the polling, if necessary, will be held on June 10 from 9 am to 4 pm.
The Counting of votes will be taken up on June 10 and the election process shall be completed on June 13.
The ruling DMK, which could easily win four of the six seats, announced its candidates for three seats, while allotting the other seat to its ally, Congress.
Tamilnadu Chief Minister and DMK President M.K.Stalin had announced that party Legal Wing Secretary R.Girirajan, Thanjavur North District Unit Secretary S.Shanmugasundaram and Namakkal East Unit District Secretary KRN Rajesh Kumar as the DMK candidates for the RS polls.
Rajesh Kumar has been re-nominated for the second time.
The DMK and its allies, which has a combined strength of 159 MLAs in the 234-member Assembly, can easily win four seats and the main Opposition AIADMK (75 MLAs) has enough strength to win the remaining two seats.
The AIADMK leadership held discussions with senior leaders to decide on the candidate and the announcement was expected to be made tomorrow, party sources said.
While releasing the election schedule for 57 seats in 15 states, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said 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 (all AIADMK).
AIADMK’s former allies, the PMK and the BJP, which have five and four MLAs respectively, have announced their support to the AIADMK for the RS polls.
BJP State President K.Annamalai the AIADMK is still part of the BJP-led NDA and that all the four BJP MLAs will support the AIADMK in the Rajya Sabha elections.
PMK also said it has decided to unanimously support the AIADMK in the polls. Both The BJP and PMK had contested the recent urban Local body polls alone
after facing the 2021 Assembly polls as part of the AIADMK-led Front.
However, while announcing the BJP’s decision to go it alone, Annamalai had said that the AIADMK continues to be part of the NDA and the BJP’s alliance with AIADMK will continue in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.