Vaiko, Anbumani elected unopposed to RS

MDMK chief Vaiko, PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss and four others, two each from the DMK and AIADMK, were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu on Thursday.

As only six nominations were found to be in the right format, they were accepted and the Returning Officer declared the candidates to be elected unopposed to the Upper House of the Parliament.

Vaiko, Ramadoss, M Shanmugham and P Wilson (both DMK), A Mohammad John and N Chandrashekaran (both AIADMK) will serve as Rajya Sabha members till July 2025.

With the DMK’s number in the Assembly increasing to 108 and the AIADMK being confined to 123, both the parties were in a position to win three seats each, without an election.

While the AIADMK gave one seat to its ally, the PMK, the DMK allotted one Rajya Sabha seat to Vaiko.

Vaiko and Ramadoss have been members of the House in the past, while the other four will be new entrants.

Vaiko was a member of the Upper House from 1978 to 1996.

Anbumani Ramadoss served his term in the House from 2004 to 2010. Later, he became a Lok Sabha MP in 2014 but lost the elections in 2019.

While the AIADMK’s strength will reduce from 13 to 9 in the Upper House, the DMK’s number will go up from three to five.

The elections were mired in controversy when Vaiko was convicted in a sedition case last week as speculation mounted on whether his nomination would be accepted. The DMK had also fielded a dummy candidate in case Vaiko’s nomination was accepted.

However, the nomination of all six candidates was accepted and all were declared elected unopposed.