Rajya Sabha elections: As many as forty-one candidates were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from 12 states. Marking her first stint in the Upper House of the Parliament, senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief JP Nadda, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, diamond baron Govindbhai Dholakia and Congress turncoat Ashok Chavan were among the leaders who were declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday (February 20).
All six candidates in Maharashtra, six in Bihar, five each in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, four in Gujarat, three each in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, and Odisha, and one each in Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana won without a contest.
It is pertinent to mention that no candidates withdrew their nominations on the last day, resulting in 11 contenders for 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, five candidates for four seats in Karnataka, and two contestants for one seat in Himachal Pradesh. In Karnataka, the Congress will compete for the third seat, while in Himachal Pradesh, it will vie for one seat. The Samajwadi Party will also contest the polls to secure the third seat in Uttar Pradesh. Now polling will be held for 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, four in Karnataka and one seat in Himachal Pradesh from 9 am to 4 pm and counting will be held on the same day from 5 pm onwards.
The BJP has won the highest number of 20 seats, followed by the Congress (6), Trinamool Congress (4), YSR Congress (3), RJD (2), BJD (2) and NCP, Shiv Sena, BRS and JD(U) one each.
As there were no other candidates in the fray on these 41 seats, the respective returning officers declared them winners on the last date of withdrawal of nominations.
Here's a list of candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha:
Maharashtra
All six candidates from Maharashtra in the fray for Rajya Sabha elections, including Congress turncoat Ashok Chavan, were declared elected unopposed. He had filed his nomination after the Maharashtra leader snapped his ties with Congress and joined the BJP.
The BJP nominees declared elected unopposed include Chavan, former MLA Medha Kulkarni, and RSS worker Ajit Gopchade. The nominees of Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party are ex-Congress MP Milind Deora and Praful Patel, respectively. The Congress had nominated Dalit leader Chandrakant Handore, the lone candidate from the Opposition.
Bihar
All six candidates for Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar, three of them from BJP-led NDA and as many belonging to the opposition INDIA bloc, were declared elected unopposed to the Upper House of Parliament. In Bihar, JD(U)'s Sanjay Kumar Jha, BJP's Dharmshila Gupta and Bhim Singh, Manoj Kumar Jha and Sanjay Yadav (both RJD) and Akhilesh Prasad Singh (Congress) were declared winners.
West Bengal
All five candidates for Rajya Sabha elections in West Bengal - four from the ruling TMC and one belonging to the BJP - were declared elected unopposed to the Upper House of Parliament. The West Bengal assembly secretariat handed over certificates to TMC's Sushmita Dev, Sagarika Ghose, Mamata Thakur and Md Nadimul Haque. Samik Bhattacharya of the BJP won the fifth Rajya Sabha seat.
Madhya Pradesh
All five candidates in the fray for Rajya Sabha polls from Madhya Pradesh were declared unopposed. Four candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and one from Congress were in the fray for Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, all of them were elected unopposed as members of Rajya Sabha.
Union Minister L Murugan, Valmiki Dham Ashram head Umesh Nath Maharaj, Kisan Morcha's national vice president Banshilal Gurjar, and Madhya Pradesh BJP's women wing president Maya Naroliya bagged four seats for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh while Ashok Singh of the Congress also got elected unopposed.
Gujarat
BJP president Nadda got elected unopposed from Gujarat along with three other BJP leaders Jashwantsinh Parmar, Mayank Nayak and diamond baron Govind Dholakia. The Congress, which has only 15 MLAs, and other opposition parties had preferred not to put up candidates against the BJP, which has 156 legislators in the 182-member Gujarat assembly.
Andhra Pradesh
The YSR Congress Party secured all three seats in Andhra Pradesh, with G Babu Rao, Y V Subba Reddy, and M Raghunath Reddy emerging as the winners.
Telangana
In Telangana, the ruling Congress secured two seats, with Renuka Chowdhury and Anil Kumar Yadav winning, while the BRS party clinched one seat with V Ravichandra emerging victorious.
Rajasthan
Former Congress president Sonia was elected unopposed from Rajasthan along with BJP’s Chunnilal Garasiya and Madan Rathore.
This is the first time that Sonia Gandhi would be entering the Rajya Sabha. She will also be the second member of the Gandhi family to do so, after Indira Gandhi who was a member of the upper house from 1964 to 1967.
Odisha
From Odisha, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw from the BJP, along with BJD's Debashish Samantray and Subhashish Khuntia, were declared as winners.
Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand BJP chief Mahendra Bhatt was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha. A former MLA, Bhatt would fill the slot in the Upper House to be vacated by the BJP's national media in-charge Anil Baluni whose tenure comes to an end in April.
Chhattisgarh
The ruling BJP's nominee Devendra Pratap Singh, who belongs to an erstwhile royal family and is active in the RSS, was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Chhattisgarh, officials said. There was only one vacant Rajya Sabha seat in the state and besides Singh, no other candidate had filed nomination papers.
Haryana
Former Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala was elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from the state on Tuesday, officials said. No other candidate had entered the fray. On April 2, the six-year term of incumbent and BJP's Rajya Sabha member Lieutenant General (retd) DP Vats will come to an end.
While 50 members will retire on April 2, six will do so on April 3. Among the members whose tenure is ending include former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Bhupendra Yadav, Mansukh Mandaviya and V Muraleedharan, and BJP's Anil Baluni and Sushil Kumar Modi. Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, were renominated by the party for the biennial polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
