Tamil Nadu's ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on Monday announced former state minister KP Munusamy, Propaganda Secretary M Thambidurai as its candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls on March 26 in the state. The party also allotted one Rajya Sabha seat to former Union Minister and Tamil Maanila Congress chief GK Vasan.

The announcement was made by AIADMK Coordinator and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and Joint Coordinator and Chief Minister K Palaniswami in a joint statement here.

Thambidurai, a former Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha, had lost last year's Lok Sabha polls from Karur.

Six Rajya Sabha members from Tamil Nadu — Sasikala Pushpa, Vijila Sathyanath, S Muthukaruppan, AK Selvaraj (all from AIADMK), Tiruchi Siva of DMK and TK Rangarajan of CPI-M — will retire on April 2.

As per the Election Commission's schedule for the biennial elections, the polling will be held on March 26 and counting of votes taken up the same day.

The ruling AIADMK has 125 MLAs (including Speaker) whereas the opposition DMK and its allies have 106 members (DMK 98, Congress 7 and IUML 1).

Presently, the AIADMK has 10 members in the Rajya Sabha and the DMK five.

Post-elections, the AIADMK strength in the Rajya Sabha is expected to fall to eight whereas DMK's strength will increase to seven.

First Published:Mar 9, 2020 4:00 PM IST