The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Sunday named its national council secretary D. Raja as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls from Tamil Nadu.
The party’s general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy, who was here to attend the state executive committee meeting, said the party had decided to re-nominate Mr Raja, whose tenure has come to an end. His name was proposed by the Central Executive committee and the state executive meeting endorsed it. Mr Raja will file his nomination on Monday.
Mr Reddy said his party approached the AIADMK allot the additional votes it could spare to the CPI candidate, but Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had expressed inability to extend its support as it had fielded five candidates.
He said the CPI had not approached any party including the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) for support and other parties including the DMK had not sought its support. “We hope the political parties which have votes but not contesting in the elections will support us,” he said.
CPI state secretary D. Pandian said there was no truth in the media reports that he was also interested in contesting in the elections.
“I never offered myself as a candidate and my name was never discussed in the party meeting. Whatever appeared in the media was a figment of imagination,” he said.
Asked why he kept silent instead of issuing a denial when his name cropped up in the media, he said since the reports were attributed to some anonymous names he did not want to issue a clarification.
He also made it clear that no great importance could be attached to the elections as was not a general election, but an election involving electoral college of MLAs who in turn would elect a candidate to Rajya Sabha.
Mr Pandian declined to comment whether the party was disappointed by the decision of the AIADMK leadership to filed candidate for the fifth seat. “I do not like to go into the issue now,” he said.
In the meantime, Captain TV, a satellite channel owned by Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) claimed that the Congress with five MLAs in the Tamil Nadu Assembly had agreed to support its candidate.
The DMDK had 29 MLAs, but seven of them already have switched their loyalty to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. If the DMDK enters the polls its tally is likely to increase to 27. Still the number is inadequate to win a seat.
