Sonia Gandhi, on Wednesday filed her nomination as Congress candidate for Rajya Sabha 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.
Sonia Gandhi reached Jaipur today along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to file the nomination. Rahul Gandhi had to take a break from his Bharat Jodo Yatra to accompany her mother.
The BuckStopper was the first to report the possibility of Sonia contesting Rajya Sabha election from Rajasthan. Sonia is certain to win this seat being vacated by former prime minister Manmohan Singh, whose term ends in April this year.
First term in Rajya Sabha for Sonia
This will be the first term in the upper house for 77-year old Sonia Gandhi after serving five terms in Lok Sabha. She will be the second in Gandhi family after Indira Gandhi, who represented Rajya Sabha from 1964-67.
With this it is certain that Sonia will not contest from Rae Bareli seat in Lok Sabha elections. There are speculations that Priyanka Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi May be fielded from this constituency, which has remained a pocket borough of Gandhi's since the times of Indira Gandhi.
Former chief minister Ashok Gehlot and party's state president Govind Singh Dotasara among several other their MLA became proposer for Sonia Gandhi.
The vote equation
There are three vacancies in Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. Going by the strength, BJP is set to win two seats and Congress one. For winning a seat, the candidate needs 51 votes. There are 115 MLA from BJP. So winning two seats is easy. There are 70 MLAs from Congress. So winning one seat is certain.
With this, Congress will have six MPs in Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. Out of that only one – Neeraj Dangi is native of Rajasthan while all others are party's stalwart- K C Venugopal, Pramod Kumar, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Surjewala.
Prakash Bhandari is a veteran journalist with over 50 years of experience. He has worked with The Times of India for 30 years and contributed to leading publications as well as international news agency AFP.
