Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP president JP Nadda and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan are among 41 candidates who have been declared as elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The list of elected members also includes Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan.
The remaining 15 seats from Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh are set for polling on February 27.
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The BJP emerged as the leading party with 20 seats, followed by the Congress with 6, Trinamool Congress with 4, YSR Congress with 3, and RJD and BJD with 2 each. NCP, Shiv Sena, BRS, and JD(U) secured one seat each. With no other contenders, the respective returning officers declared these 41 candidates as winners on the last day of the nomination withdrawal.
The biennial elections for the 56 seats were announced to be held on February 27, with 50 members completing their term on April 2 and six retiring on April 3. BJP’s JP Nadda and three other nominees from Gujarat, namely Jasvantsinh Parmar, Mayank Nayak, and diamond baron Govindbhai Dholakia, were declared winners.
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The opposition parties, including the Congress with 15 MLAs, opted not to contest against the BJP, which holds 156 legislators in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly.
In Rajasthan, Sonia Gandhi secured her position without facing any opposition, along with BJP’s Chunnilal Garasiya and Madan Rathore.
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Meanwhile, all six candidates from Maharashtra, including Ashok Chavan (who recently joined the BJP after leaving the Congress), Medha Kulkarni, and Ajit Gopchhade; Shiv Sena’s Milind Deora (who also quit the Congress last month), Praful Patel (NCP), and Chandrakant Handore (Cong), were elected unopposed.
Bihar witnessed victories for JD(U)’s Sanjay Kumar Jha, BJP’s Dharmshila Gupta and Bhim Singh, RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha and Sanjay Yadav, and Congress’ Akhilesh Prasad Singh. From West Bengal, TMC’s Sushmita Dev, Sagarika Ghose, Mamata Thakur, and Md Nadimul Haque, along with BJP’s Samik Bhattacharya, emerged as winners.
In Madhya Pradesh, BJP secured four seats with candidates like Union minister Murugan, Valmiki Dham Ashram head Umesh Nath Maharaj, Kisan Morcha’s national vice president Banshilal Gurjar, and BJP’s women wing president Maya Naroliya. Congress’ Ashok Singh also won unopposed.
From Odisha, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw (BJP) and BJD’s Debashish Samantray and Subhashish Khuntia secured victories. YSR Congress candidates won all three seats in Andhra Pradesh, while in Telangana, the ruling Congress secured two seats, and BRS won one.
BJP nominees from Uttarakhand (Mahendra Bhatt), Subhash Barala (Haryana), and Devendra Pratap Singh (Chhattisgarh) were also elected unopposed, further solidifying the party’s representation in the Rajya Sabha.
(With PTI Inputs)