Six Rajya Sabha nominees from Tamil Nadu elected unopposed

CHENNAI: Six Rajya Sabha nominees, four of ruling AIADMK and two belonging to DMK, were today elected unopposed to the Upper House from Tamil Nadu.

AIADMK candidates R Vaithilingam, A Navaneethakrishnan, A Vijayakumar, former Union Minister S R Balasubramoniyan, DMK nominees R S Bharathi and T K S Elangovan were declared elected to fill the vacancies of the six members who will retire on June 29 this year, Assembly Secretary and Returning Officer, A M P Jamaludeen said in a statement.

Today was the last date of withdrawal of nominations.

With the election of four MPs, the strength of ruling AIADMK will go up to 12 from the present 11 in Rajya Sabha. There will be no change in the number of DMK MPs which will continue to be four.

The elections were called to fill the vacancies of six MPs to Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu.

The terms of AIADMK's Navaneethakrishnan, A W Rabi Bernard and P H Paul Manoj Pandian and DMK's K P Ramalingam and S Thangavelu and former Union Minister and Congress leader E M Sudarsana Natchiappan, will end in June.

The scrutiny of nominations was held on Wednesday and papers of seven independents were found to be invalid.