Rajya Sabha election in Tamil Nadu has long list of DMK, AIADMK contenders

The Election Commission has announced the dates for elections to six Rajya Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and a long list of leaders in both the ruling DMK and the Opposition AIADMK are pushing for the chance to enter the Upper House of the Parliament. As the current numbers in the state Assembly stand, the DMK gets to send four MPs to the Rajya Sabha and AIADMK gets two.

According to sources, the DMK may choose to nominate an MP who had gotten an opportunity to enter Rajya Sabha last year and the second seat might go to a senior leader of the party. Former Lok Sabha MP the Organisation Secretary of DMK, TKS Elangovan is one of the frontrunners for the second RS seat, say sources. The third seat might be given to a former or current journalist, aligned with the party ideology. Party sources say that the editor of a Tamil channel run by a DMK leader might make the cut.

The fourth RS seat might be given to a leader from the western belt of Tamil Nadu, known as the Kongu Belt. Karthikeya Sivasenapathy who had taken on AIADMK heavyweight SP Velumani in Coimbatore’s Thondamuthur Assembly constituency in the 2021 Assembly elections is top on this list. Karthikeya was one of the faces of the Jallikattu protests in 2016-17. This is an important region which has 50 Assembly seats and has been an AIADMK bastion for a while now.

In AIADMK, insiders say that the two seats will be given one each to leaders from the O Panneerselvam(OPS) and Edappadi Palaniswami(EPS) camps.

OPS wants a RS seat given to his loyalist and senior leader from the home district Theni, Sayed Khan, say sources. The other AIADMK seat has at least five to six strong contenders from the EPS camp. The two front runners for the seat are senior leader and MLA S Semmalai and former minister D Jayakumar who had lost the assembly elections from Royapuram Constituency in 2021.

The state of Tamil Nadu gets to nominate a total of 18 members to the Rajya Sabha and six of the seats will fall vacant on June 29, 2022. The elections to the same will be held on June 10, the EC announced.