- By Aditya Jha
- Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:48 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Rajya Sabha Polls: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay has announced that the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) would allocate the lone Rajya Sabha seat to Congress, its key alliance partner. The seat was vacated after AIADMK’s C Ve Shanmugam resigned following his victory in the assembly polls. The announcement from Vijay came after back-to-back meetings with senior Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Girish Chodankar. The Congress is soon likely to announce the candidate for the poll scheduled to be conducted on June 18.
In his statement, Vijay informed that the lone upper house seat has been allocated to the grand old party. "As Rajya Sabha election is to be held in Tamil Nadu on 18th of this month, a seat has been allocated to the All India Congress party, which is part of the alliance led by TVK in Tamil Nadu," Vijay said in his statement.
His announcement came hours after Girish Chodankar, Congress in charge in Tamil Nadu, met the chief minister at the Secretariat and made a formal request. While talking to the reporters, Chodankar stated that the Congress high command will finalise the name of the candidate.
"Candidates' names are finalised only by the central election authority of the Congress party. The moment this seat is announced as a Congress seat, then we will request our central election committee to decide on our candidate," he said.
As per the reports, Congress is likely to nominate Praveen Chakravarty, the key figure in finalising the alliance between TVK and the grand old party. CM Vijay was interested in sending Chakravarty to the upper house, who reportedly convinced the Congress top brass to break the ties with DMK when the results were announced, reported the Deccan Herald, citing sources.
Chakravarty is considered close to senior leader Rahul Gandhi and reportedly approached the high command to form a pre-poll alliance with TVK.