Chennai

Vice president Venkaiah Naidu on Monday accepted the resignations of AIADMK’s KP Munusamy and R Vaithilingam who were elected to the state Assembly in May last. Speculation was rife among critics and within DMK circles about the likely names to be nominated to the upper house of the Parliament this time. 

Thanga Tamilselvan, who had unsuccessfully contested against AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam in Theni in the April 6 Assembly elections after defecting from TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK, is among the contenders for Rajya Sabha nomination. 

Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, who lost to AIADMK whip SP Velumani in Thondamuthur and DMK medical wing secretary Dr S Kanimozhi, who had expressed her discontent over the high command denying her MLA ticket and a senior woman leader are the other names doing the rounds in the DMK circles for the RS nominations. 

The name of an influential member of the DMK first family was also rumoured for elevation till a few weeks ago. Significantly, the informed predictions did not discourage the state Congress from harbouring hope that the DMK would honour its informal assurance made in this regard during Assembly seat sharing talks. 

A Congress senior said on condition of anonymity that DMK would nominate one of them to the Rajya Sabha if the elections were held separately for the three seats. DMK had petitioned the Election Commission a few weeks ago to conduct separate biennial elections for the three vacancies in the state. DMK has seven members in the Rajya Sabha, one more than the principal Opposition party AIADMK.

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