TN will witness contest in RS elections after 17 years -Thursday June 20,2013

In February 1996, the State saw a contest when Peter Alphonse of Congress was elected to the Rajya Sabha. As witnessed now, there were 7 candidates, including the AIADMK’s 5 and the rebel Congress group’s nominee – M. Udayabhanu. Finally, all the 5 nominees of the AIADMK won.  

In July 1983, P. Ramamurthi of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) lost to G.K. Moopanar of the Congress. In that election, Aladi Aruna, who was then in the AIADMK, and Murasoli Maran of the DMK were among the prominent winners. In total, four AIADMK nominees and one each from the DMK and the Congress won

In March 1984, when Ms. Jayalalithaa was elected to the House of Elders, Arcot N. Veeraswami, DMK’s second candidate and who later became Minister in the DMK government, was defeated.Four AIADMK members and the DMK’s V. Gopalaswami, now known as Vaiko, were declared winners. For the sixth seat, the Congress’ K.V. Thangkabalu posted victory in the third count with 30 votes

The State will witness a contest in the Rajya Sabha elections after a gap of 17 years. As the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers came to an end at 3 p.m. on Thursday June 20,2013 the poll authorities announced that there were 7 candidates in the fray for 6seats. 

The candidates are -

• K.R. Arjunan(AIADMK)
• R. Lakshmanan(AIADMK)
• V. Maitreyan (AIADMK)
• T. Rathinavel (AIADMK)
• Kanimozhi  (DMK)

• D. Raja (CPI) and 

• A. R. Elangovan (DMDK)