Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P. Chidambaram on Monday filed his nomination as the party’s candidate for one of the six Rajya Sabha seats from Tamil Nadu that will fall vacant next month.
From the AIADMK, former Minister C.Ve. Shanmugam and party functionary R. Dharmar submitted their nominations. While Mr. Chidambaram submitted his nomination to the Returning Officer at the Secretariat in the presence of DMK general secretary and Minister Duraimurugan, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.S. Alagiri and other senior leaders, Mr. Shanmugam and Mr. Dharmar were accompanied by AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam, co-coordinator Edappadi K. Palaniswami and other senior party leaders.
The DMK, which fielded three candidates, had allotted a seat to the Congress. The allotment of a Rajya Sabha seat to the Congress in the State was part of an informal agreement between the Congress and the DMK during the seat-sharing discussions for the 2021 Assembly election. DMK candidates R. Girirajan, S. Kalyanasundaram and K.R.N. Rajeshkumar submitted their nominations last week. The six Rajya Sabha members whose term is set to expire next month are the AIADMK’s A. Navaneethakrishnan, A. Vijayakumar and S.R. Balasubramoniyan; and the DMK’s K.R.N. Rajeshkumar, R.S. Bharathi and T.K.S. Elangovan. If more than six eligible candidates file valid nominations for the six vacancies, polling would be held on June 10. Tamil Nadu has a total of 18 seats in the Upper House of Parliament. As of now, the DMK has 10 members, the AIADMK five and the MDMK, the PMK and the Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) one member each in the Rajya Sabha.
