Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday filed nomination papers for the upcoming Rajya Sabha election from Rajasthan.
She arrived in Jaipur accompanied by her son and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as well as former Chief Minister of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot, and later headed to the Rajasthan Assembly to file her nominations for forthcoming elections on February 27.
With her nomination, the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, which she represented, is likely to be filled by Priyanka Gandhi. She was first elected as an MP in 1999 after taking over as the Congress president. In 2019, Sonia Gandhi had announced that it would be her last Lok Sabha election.
On Sonia Gandhi filing her nomination, Gehlot said that her relationship with Rajasthan is very old.
In a post on X, Gehlot said, “We heartily welcome the announcement of respected Smt. Sonia Gandhi ji as the Rajya Sabha candidate from the Congress Party, who renounced the post of Prime Minister.”
“Today her announcement as Rajya Sabha candidate from Rajasthan is a matter of happiness for the entire state and with this announcement all the old memories have been refreshed,” he added.
A total of 56 members of Rajya Sabha from 15 states are retiring in April and the election to the seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.
The Congress is comfortably placed to win one of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan, a seat which will fall vacant after Congress leader and former prime minister Manmohan Singh completes his six-year tenure in April.
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.