Six Rajya Sabha seats representing Tamil Nadu will fall vacant soon. This has prompted the Election Commission of India to announce election dates.
The Election Commission has fixed July 18 as the date for the elections to Tamil Nadu's six Rajya Sabha seats, that will fall vacant next month.
The poll panel has said that the notification for the election would be issued on July 1, while fixing July 18 as the day for voting. Voting will take place between 9am and 4pm.
Counting of votes will also take place on the same day at 5pm.
The ECI notice further read that nominations to the seats would have to be filed by July 8 and the last day to withdraw nominations would be July 11.
The strength in Tamil Nadu Assembly, which forms the electorate for the indirect Rajya Sabha polls is 232.
The terms of six Rajya Sabha members are to end on July 24. The outgoing members include DMK leader Kanimozhi, who was recently elected to the Lok Sabha.
The five other outgoing members are D Raja of CPI and R Lakshmanan, K R Arjunan, V Maitreyan and T Rathinavel, all of AIADMK.
The ruling AIADMK has 123 MLAs on its side, while DMK and its allies have 108 MLAs in the House.
The DMK is expected to send up to three members to the Upper House and if reports are to be believed, Congress has sought the help of its ally to elect former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the Rajya Sabha.
However, one of the three seats would go to Vaiko of the MDMK party, as per DMK's prepoll alliance.
On the other hand, the AIADMK had promised one seat to former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss as per the prepoll alliance with the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK).
The AIADMK currently has eight Rajya Sabha MPs and one Lok Sabha MP— OP Raveendranath Kumar who is none other than the son of deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam. He was the only AIADMK member to have won a seat.
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