Sonia Gandhi files nomination for Rajya Sabha polls from Rajasthan, her first term in the Upper House after serving five terms as Lok Sabha MP.
Sonia Gandhi has filed her nomination as Congress candidate for Rajya Sabha Biennial polls from Rajasthan. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge approved the candidature of Sonia Gandhi from Rajasthan and Dr Akhilesh Prasad Singh from Bihar. Further Abhishek Manu Singhvi has been fielded from Himachal Pradesh and Chandrakant Handore from Maharashtra.
Congress is certain to win one Rajya Sabha seat from the state, and it will be the 77-year-old leader’s first term in the Upper House after serving five terms as a Lok Sabha MP.
Gandhi, who represented Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, will not contest the next general elections. She was first elected as an MP in 1999 after taking over as the Congress president.
She will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter Rajya Sabha after former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was a member of the Upper House from August 1964 to February 1967.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi has been fielded from Himachal Pradesh for the Rajya Sabha elections. From Maharashtra and Bihar, Congress nominated Chandrakant Handore, Akhilesh Prasad Singh respectively.
Earlier today, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) fielded Union Minister L Murugan, Maya Narollya, Bansilal Gurjar and Umesh Nath Maharai from Madhya Pradesh.
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will contest from Odisha. The ruling BJD has announced its support for Vaishnaw in Odisha.
BJP’s Dharmsheela Gupta and Bhim Singh have been fielded from Bihar and Raja Devendra Pratap Singh from Chhattisgarh.
Subhash Barala will represent BJP from Haryana, Narayana Krishanasa Bhandage from Karnataka, Mahendra Bhatt from Uttarakhand and Samik Bhattacharya from West Bengal.
RPN Singh, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, Sadhna Singh, Amarpal Maurya, Sangita Balwant and Navin Jain will fight for BJP from Uttar Pradesh.
A total of 68 members of Rajya Sabha from 15 states are retiring in April. The election to the vacant Rajya Sabha seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.
Eight Central Ministers– Mansukh Mandaviya, Bhupender Yadav, Parshottam Rupala, Dharmendra Pradhan, V Murleedharan, Narayan Rane, Rajeev Chandrashekhar and Ashwini Vaishnaw– former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP national President JP Nadda, will retire by the first week of May this year.
28 MPs from the BJP, 11 from Congress, four from Trinamool Congress, four from Bharat Rashtra Samithi, two each from Biju Janata Dal, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United) are also retiring this year.
One MP each from YSRCP, Shiv Sena, NCP, Telugu Desam Party, and Sikkim Democratic Front will also be stepping down this term along with Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan, BJP’s Anil Baluni and Prakash Javadekar, and BJD’s Amar Patnaik.
Speculations are that the retirement of these MPs and the outcome of the upcoming general elections will impact the representation each party will have in the Upper House during the next Lok Sabha term.
At present, the BJP has 93 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, 30 MPs are from Congress, 13 from Trinamool Congress, and six nominated members, among others, in a house of 239 with six vacancies.
