Chennai, May 18 (IANS) One year after assuming power in Tamil Nadu, the DMK is revamping its team in New Delhi. With Radhika Selvi to join the central council of ministers Friday, adding to the seven ministers already there, the party is also planning its moves to get two names into the Rajya Sabha against the seats that are to fall vacant.
Tamil Nadu has the highest representation in the union government – 12 ministers – of which five are of cabinet rank, including two from the DMK.
Former minister of state for environment A. Raja, a Dalit leader from the Perambalur reserved constituency, is the new union IT and telecommunications minister.
Forty-four-year-old Raja is a lawyer by profession and this is his third term in the Lok Sabha. He was a minister also in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet.
T.R. Balu, union shipping minister, is an MP from Madras South constituency.
His party colleague S. Reghupathy is a former AIADMK minister who switched to the DMK in 2004. He is an MP from the Pudukottai Lok Sabha constituency, a backward region where caste votes matter. He has been moved from minister of state (home) to the environment portfolio.
The DMK has four ministers of state – S.S. Palanimanickkam finance, K. Venkatapathy, Subbulakshmi Jegadeesan and R. Velu. Radhika Selvi, a 31-year-old MP from Tiruchendur Lok Sabha constituency, will be the fifth.
She is said to be the choice of DMK president M. Karunanidhi’s wife Rajathi Ammal and belongs to the Nadar community.
The other two major caste groups in Tamil Nadu are said to be the Thevars who support the AIADMK and the Vanniyars, who support the PMK.
Meanwhile, the term of six Rajya Sabha members from the state ends in July and the DMK will choose two new members in June.
In the Rajya Sabha, the membership of R. Kamraj (AIADMK), S. Gokula Indira (AIADMK), S.S. Chandran (AIADMK), P.G. Narayanan (AIADMK), K.P.K. Kumaran (DMK) and P.S. Gnanadesikan (Congress) will end July 24.
The DMK and its allies have a combined strength of 165 MLAs in the Tamil Nadu assembly, which has a total of 234 members. They can send four members to the Rajya Sabha.
The DMK is expected to nominate two members and its ally, the Congress, two names.
A frontrunner is D. Raja of the Communist Party of India (CPI), who is likely to get DMK support. The CPI has six MLAs in the assembly but would get DMK support as it gave up its traditional Nagapattinam Lok Sabha seat to the party in 2004.
Two other names doing the rounds for a DMK Rajya Sabha nomination are of two of Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s children – his daughter M.K. Kanimozhi, and there is some speculation about elder son M.K. Azhagiri.
Sitting member K.P.K. Kumaran, the former owner of the Dinakaran newspaper and a media baron, is likely to get a second term. The dark horse could be T.K.S. Elangovan, the party’s organising secretary.
From the Congress, the names doing the round are of Jayanthi Natarajan, seen to be close to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and Tamil Nadu State Congress president M. Krishnaswamy, father-in-law of central Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss. Gnanadesikan may get a second term. Krishnaswamy is the frontrunner here.
The AIADMK and its ally the MDMK have 67 MLAs and could send two members to the upper house of parliament. P.G. Narayanan is expected to retain his seat, and MDMK leader Vaiko may get a Rajya Sabha seat this time.
A notification for the Rajya Sabha polls is expected May 29 and the last date for filing of nominations is June 5. The nomination papers will be scrutinised on June 6 and the last day for withdrawal of candidature is June 8.