By IANS,
Chennai: The crushing defeat of the DMK-led front in the 2011 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu has shattered the Rajya Sabha dreams of PMK leader and former union minister Anbumani Ramadoss.
The DMK front won just 31 seats out of 234 it contested. Within that, the DMK won 23 seats, the PMK three and the Congress five. In Tamil Nadu, the support of around 33 legislators is neccesary to get elected to the Rajya Sabha.
The DMK-PMK had agreed that Ramadoss will be elected to Rajya Sabha in 2014. Ramadoss was a union minister in United Progressive Alliance government from 2004-2009. He was a Rajya Sabha member from 2004-2010.
But, with just 31 seats, the front falls short of the required number by two for Ramadoss to get elected – provided DMK is willing to give a Rajya Sabha seat to the PMK.
Even the DMK will have to depend on other parties to get its own nominee get elected for Rajya Sabha.
The AIADMK-led front has won a whopping 203 seats in the recently concluded elections. The AIADMK on its own has won 150 seats, including four smaller parties which fought on its symbol. Its major allies DMDK won 29, CPI-M 10 and CPI 9.
So, for all practical purposes, AIADMK-front will win all Rajya Sabha seats from Tamil Nadu when the elections are held.
There are 18 Rajya Sabha members from Tamil Nadu.
In 2013, six of the elected members – Kanimozhi and N. Siva of the DMK, A. Elavarasan and V. Maitreyan of the AIADMK, B.S. Gnanadesikan of Congress and D. Raja of Communist Party of India (CPI) are to retire.
In 2014, another six — S. Amir Ali Jinnah and Vasanthi Stanley of the DMK, G.K. Vasan, and Jayanthi Natarajan of the Congress, T.K. Rangarajan of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and N. Balaganga of the AIADMK will retire.
Presently, the AIADMK has five members and the DMK seven members in Rajya Sabha. The other members belong to the Congress, the CPI-M and the CPI.