DMK’s standby candidate withdraws RS nomination

When the last date for withdrawals end at 15 00 hrs on Thursday, Assembly Secretary K Srinivasan, who is also the Returning Officer, will announce that the six candidates —two each from the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition DMK, and one each from the PMK and MDMK —as elected unopposed to the Upper House of Parliament.

Those who would be declared elected were AIADMK’s former Minister A Mohammed Jan and N Chandrasekaran, M Shanmugham, general secretary of LPF and advocate P Wilson (both DMK) and former minister Anbumani Ramadoss of PMK, which was allotted one seat by the AIADMK and Vaiko.

There were doubts about Vaiko’s papers being rejected in the wake of a special court convicting him for one year in a sedition case.

Since his nominations were accepted and Elango withdrew his papers, Vaiko, who was allotted one seat as per the seat sharing pact by the DMK, is all set to re-enter Parliament after a gap of 23 years.

Vaiko had earlier served as a DMK Rajya Sabha member from 1978 to 1996.

As per its strength, the AIADMK, which has 123 MLAs could win three seats from the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The DMK, which has 101 MLAs in the 234-member Assembly, could also win three seats, as each candidate needed the support of 34 MLAs. It’s ally the Congress has seven MLAs, while two seats were vacant and another one was an Independent.

The elections were necessitated to fill up the vacancies caused by the retirement of five sitting members —T Rathinavel, V Maitreyan, KB Arjunan, R Lakshmanan (all AIADMK), D Raja of the CPI —and due to the resignation of DMK’s Kanimozhi.