Chennai, June 11:
With the backing of the ruling TVK headed by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, All India Professionals’ Congress Chairperson Praveen Chakravarthy was declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from the Tamil Nadu Assembly on the last day for withdrawals on Thursday afternoon.
Of the total 13 nominations filed for the lone seat, only the papers filed by Praveen were found to be in order during scrutiny on June 9, while those filed by 12 Independents were rejected.
Since he was lone official candidate left in the fray, he was declared elected unopposed by Returning Officer .P.Thenmozhi, who is also the Additional Secretary of the Legislative Assembly Secretariat. Following his victory, Praveen also received the election certificate from her.
The RS seat fell vacant following the resignation of AIADMK MP C Ve Shanmugam after he was elected to the State Assembly.
A day after securing the seat from the TVK, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) late on June 4 night nominated Praveen as the candidate.
Going by the strength of the TVK and its alliance and supporting parties in the 234-member Assembly (present strength 229), Praveen as expected, sailed through comfortably and was declared elected unopposed.
The two Dravidian majors–the opposition DMK and the AIADMK–did not enter the fray as they could not cobble up enough numbers.
Praveen Charavarthy, along with some Congress leaders, was instrumental in initiating moves for a tie up with the Vijay’s party in the run up to the Assembly elections and was the architect in Congress finally aligning with Vijay’s party in post-poll realignment.
The TVK, as part of further strengthening its ties with the National party and recognising its gesture of being the first party to jump to Vijay’s aid that enabled him to prove his majority in the Assembly after parting ways with the DMK, had allotted the lone Rajya Sabha seat to its key ally, the Congress, barely an hour after AICC Tamil Nadu in-charge Girish Chodankar along with senior leaders met Vijay at the State Secretariat and made a formal request.
With this the Congress party had won two Rajya Sabha seats in a short span of time, after getting one berth earlier from its former ally, the DMK, while inking the seat sharing agreement for the Assembly elections.
The Congress, while aligning with the TVK and pledging the support of its five MLAs and later joining the Cabinet after breaking ranks with the DMK, has expressed interest in securing the lone RS seat, got it later and won it with the support of TVK.