BJP Chief JP Nadda, Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Ashok Chavan along with Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were some of the candidates who were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The remaining 15 seats will be filled after polls which are to be conducted in Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh on February 27.
The maximum number of seats went to the BJP, ie. 20, followed by Congress which got 6, Trinamool Congress which secured 4, YSR Congress which got 3, and RJD got 2, and NCP, Shiv Sena, BRS and JDU got 1 seat each.
The winners in the 41 seats were declared on the last day of withdrawals after no other candidates were in the fray to oppose them.
The biennial elections will be held on February 27 for as many as 56 seats in the Rajya Sabha from 15 states. While 50 members will complete their term on April 2, six will retire on April 3.
Four winners were declared from Gujarat including JP Nadda, Jasvantsinh Parmar, Mayank Nayak and diamond baron Govindbhai Dholakia. The Congress which only has 15 MLAs, and other opposition parties, did not put up their candidates, owing to an assembly which consists of 156 legislators majority of BJP.
All six candidates hailing from Maharashtra, including BJP’s recent party entrant Chavan, who switched allegiance from the Congress last Tuesday, along with Medha Kulkarni and Ajit Gopchhade; Shiv Sena’s Milind Deora, who parted ways with the Congress last month; NCP’s Praful Patel, and Congress’ Chandrakant Handore, secured their positions uncontested.
In Bihar, victors emerged as Sanjay Kumar Jha from JD(U), Dharmshila Gupta and Bhim Singh from BJP, Manoj Kumar Jha and Sanjay Yadav from RJD, and Akhilesh Prasad Singh from Congress.
Meanwhile, West Bengal witnessed triumphs for TMC’s Sushmita Dev, Sagarika Ghose, Mamata Thakur, and Md Nadimul Haque, along with Samik Bhattacharya representing the BJP.
In Madhya Pradesh, Union minister Murugan, Umesh Nath Maharaj of Valmiki Dham Ashram, Banshilal Gurjar, the national vice president of Kisan Morcha, and Maya Naroliya, the women wing president of Madhya Pradesh BJP, secured four seats for the BJP, while Ashok Singh of Congress also clinched victory unopposed.
From Odisha, the winners included Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw from BJP, and Debashish Samantray and Subhashish Khuntia from BJD.
YSR’s 3 candidates, G Babu Rao, Y V Subba Reddy and M Raghunath Reddy won seats in Andhra Pradesh. In Telangana, the ruling Congress bagged two seats — Renuka Chowdhury and Anil Kumar Yadav — and the BRS won one seat — V Ravichandra.
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