Vaiko
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) General Secretary Vaiko's nomination for the July 18 Rajya Sabha election in Tamil Nadu accepted on Tuesday.
Interestingly, Vaiko was recently sentenced to one-year jail term by a special court in Chennai in a sedition case.
According to a statement issued by K. Srinivasan, Returning Officer and Assembly Secretary, a total of seven nominations were accepted and four were rejected.
An ally of DMK in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha polls, the MDMK was allotted one Rajya Sabha seat as a part of the alliance agreement.
As there was apprehension about his nomination not being accepted, Vaiko had asked DMK President M.K. Stalin to field an alternate candidate from his party.
Accordingly, N.R. Elango of the DMK had also filed his nomination which was also accepted. He is likely to withdraw from the race.
M. Shanmugham and P. Wilson (both DMK), A. Mohammed John and N. Chandrasekaran (both AIADMK) and Anbumani Ramadoss of PMK are the other contestants
In the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, the AIADMK has 123 MLAs. The DMK has a strength of 101. DMK ally Congress has seven MLAs, there is one Independent member, while two seats are vacant.
The elections are being held to fill up the vacancies caused by the retirement of five Rajya Sabha members -- T. Rathinavel, V. Maitreyan, K.B. Arjunan, R. Lakshmanan (all AIADMK), and D. Raja (CPI) -- and the resignation of DMK's Kanimozhi following her win in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
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(With inputs from IANS)
