As we reported earlier, the fight and the competitions are on between the respective camps of Tamil Nadu ruling ADMK party and the opposition DMK party as the lobbying has begun from the senior leaders of both the parties to get bestowed with the Rajya Sabha MP ticket. 

On Tuesday, the Election Commission of India has announced the schedule for the elections to 55 Rajya Sabha seats in 17 states that are due to get expired in April and as per the schedule, the polls to fill these in the upper house of the Parliament will be held on March 26. Of those 55 seats, Tamil Nadu accounts for six seats. These six seats have currently been occupied by S Muthukaruppan, Vijila Satyanath, Selvaraj of ADMK, Sasikala Pushpa - the rebelled ADMK member who joined BJP, TK Rangarajan of CPM, and Trichy Siva of DMK parties.

With the current numbers of the MLAs in the assembly, the ADMK and DMK party can easily elect three MPs each without any election. According to the reports, senior ADMK leaders M Thambidurai and KP Munusamy have been pressing for the party's ticket along with founder of New Justice Party AC Shanmugam. Thambidurai was the former Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker and Munusamy is the current joint coordinator of the ADMK party while Shanmugam's party observes an alliance with the ADMK. Earlier, Shanmugam contested in the recent Vellore Lok Sabha polls and he was defeated by the rival DMK and the reports say that these three names are on the top of the table with the strong possibilities of entering the Rajya Sabha.

However, some of the party members including Balaganga, Gokula Indira, and JCD Prabhakar have been on the track to win the party's tickets for Rajya Sabha MP elections. On the other hand, DMK MP Tiruchi Siva is one of the MPs due to get retired in April and the reports say that he would face tough competition within the party to retain his seat in Rajya Sabha. According to reports, party member and senior Advocate NR Elango has become the main contender of the party with the bright prospect of securing a Rajya Sabha ticket. His name was on the list of top contenders in previous elections but he couldn't reserve his berth but for this time, he would be given with the berth amid the tough competitions.

The reports have further stated that for the rest of two seats, the DMK would likely to nominate the member from a minority and a Vanniyar community with the motive of revamping the party's base in these two communities and some of the party members have recommended the party's leadership to nominate Veerapandi Raja to repair the damaged relations with his community in Salem district after he was removed from the post of district secretary. Vanniyar community has established its strongholds in northern districts of Tamil Nadu and the PMK party, which pedals with the support of Vanniyar, has been in alliance with the ruling ADMK party. By awarding the candidacy, the DMK party would reaffirm its commitment towards the Vanniyar community with the view of the upcoming urban local body and legislative polls.

According to the notification of Election Commission, filing the nominations for these six seats would begin on March 6th and conclude on March 13th after which the filed nominations will be scrutinized and the final list of candidates would be released on March 16 and the final date of withdrawing the nominations is March 18. Currently, the ADMK and its alliance have 11 Rajya Sabha MPs, of which four MPs are due to retire in April and the DMK led coalition has seven MPs in the upper house, of which the seats of two MPs are becoming vacant. 

Also read: TN Rajya Sabha elections: The fight is on between ADMK and DMK alliances!