Chennai, May 27 (Agency) Three candidates of the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu on Friday filed their nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha elections to be held on June 10. The candidates–Party Legal Wing Secretary R.Girirajan, Thanjavur North District Unit Secretary S.Shanmugasundaram and and Namakkal East Unit District Secretary KRN RajeshKumar–filed their nomination papers before Legislative Assembly Secretary and Returning Officer K.Srinivasan in the presence of Chief Minister and DMK President M.K.Stalin, Water Resources Minister and Party General Secretary Duraimurugan, Lok Sabha Member T.R.Baalu and Rajya Sabha MP Trichy N.Siva. Rajesh Kumar has been re-nominated for the second time. Of the total six seats that would fall vacant on June 29, the DMK chose to contest in three seats and allotted one to its ally, Congress.
The principal Opposition AIADMK, which could win the other two seats, has announced former Law Minister, C.Ve. Shanmugam and the party’s former Ramanathapuram district secretary R. Dharmar as the party candidates. The filing of nominations for the June 10 biennial elections to fill six Rajya Sabha seats began on Tuesday with the issuing of the notification. The last date for filing of nominations is May 31 and the scrutiny will take place the next day (June one). The last date for withdrawal is June three and the polling, if necessary, will be held on June 10 from 09:00 am to 04:00 pm. The Counting of votes will be taken up on June 10 and the election process shall be completed on June 13. 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 Front (75 MLAs) has enough strength to win the remaining two seats. 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.