As the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s term in the Rajya Sabha is nearing its end, the Congress party approached its alliance partner in Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK), requesting it to allocate a Rajya Sabha seat from the seat for the Congress stalwart. However, DMK has passed up this request by Congress, naming three candidates for the upper house of the parliament.
The Election Commission had announced last month elections on six seats to the Rajya Sabha. The number of seats in the state assembly for both ruling AIADMK and the DMK-led opposition is such that they can send three members each to the Upper House. AIADMK has 123 legislators while the principal opposition party DMK has 100 legislators in the 234-member legislative assembly.
Turning down Congress’ request to consider former PM Manmohan Singh’s candidature for one of the 3 Rajya Sabha seats available to the DMK, the party instead sent its own candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections. Congress has 7 lawmakers in the assembly and thus it doesn’t qualify to send any of the nominations to the Rajya Sabha.
As per the electoral arrangement struck by the DMK, it has to designate one seat to MDMK chief Vaiko from its existing quota of three. The DMK will contest on the remaining two seats. The party president MK Stalin has declared that party trade union leader M Shanmugam and senior advocate P Wilson will be the nominees for the biennial election, scheduled to happen on July 18.
