AIADMK’s dilemma: 2 RS seats, too many takers

CHENNAI: A day after the ruling DMK announced the list of 3 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls scheduled next month, the rat race has begun in the opposition AIADMK camp.

AIADMK leaders O Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami, in the past two RS polls, had given seats for partymen in western and northern TN. Now, party functionaries in Chennai and south Tamil Nadu are putting pressure on the leaders to give seats to regional satraps.

AIADMK functionaries in south TN are upbeat as the party’s secondary leaders have hinted that this time OPS is likely to reserve at least 1 seat for one of his hardcore loyalists. The names of heavy-weights including D Jayakumar, C Ve Shanmugham, Gokula Indira, P Valarmathi, JCD Prabhakar, Sayed Khan, Inbadurai and Babu Murugavel and actor Vindya are doing the rounds for the posts.

“Some are pleading, some are blackmailing... leadership in a fix,” tweeted former AIADMK IT wing secretary Aspire Swaminathan. The grapevine is that more than 60 aspirants within the party are lobbying for the coveted posts.

The AIADMK is working overtime to finalise candidates for 2 seats, as the EC has announced that elections to the RS posts will be held on June 10.

Tamil Nadu will nominate 18 members to RS and 6 of the seats will fall vacant on June 29, 2022. Existing members SR Balasubramoniyan, RS Bharathi, TKS Elangovan, A Navaneethakrishnan, KRN Rajeshkumar and A Vijayakumar will retire by next month.