RS poll: DMK, Cong file nominations

Chennai, Mar 5 (PTI) The ruling DMK candidates Tiruchi Siva and J Constantine Ravindran on Thursday filed their nomination papers for the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha.

Also, the Congress candidate M Christopher Tilak, and DMDK treasurer L K Sudeesh submitted their papers before the polling official at the Secretariat here.

The DMK's allies -- the Congress and Premalatha Vijayakanth-led DMDK, which joined the DMK's alliance recently, have been allotted a seat each by the Dravidian major from out of the four Rajya Sabha seats allocated for the DMK.

Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is the president of the DMK, accompanied all the four candidates for the filing of the papers on the last day of filing the nominations for the biennial election on March 16.

All the four candidates are set to win as they would be elected based on the strength of the DMK and Congress in the state Assembly.

While Siva is a four-time Rajya Sabha member, Constantine, the DMK spokesperson, Tilak and Sudeesh would be elected for the first time.

The present Rajya Sabha election marks a major milestone for the DMDK as it would get an MP. The party has been nursing the ambition of sending Sudeesh, brother-in-law of DMDK founder 'Captain' Vijayakanth, to Parliament.

After hectic bargaining with the AIADMK and blaming its chief Edappadi K Palaniswami for delaying the allocation of the seat to the party, Premalatha, who is DMDK general secretary, finally met the DMK president and joined the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance on February 19.

The AIADMK and its ally, the BJP, were keen on roping in PMK (Anbumani) faction to the NDA, and on March 4, Palaniswami announced a Rajya Sabha seat to Anbumani. PTI JSP JSP ROH