Congress To Decide Rajya Sabha Nominees, Chidambaram Under Consideration From Tamil Nadu

The grand old party is expected to win eight Rajya Sabha seats, mainly from Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi (File Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The Congress is likely to finalize the nominees for the Rajya Sabha biennial elections in its meeting to be chaired by party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who is in London, is likely to attend the meeting through video conferencing, ANI reported sources as saying.

The Congress is likely to finalize its Rajya Sabha nominees by Saturday evening.

The grand old party is expected to win eight Rajya Sabha seats, mainly from Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

Congress veterans P. Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Vivek Tankha, Ajay Maken, Rajeev Shukla, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari are stated to be in the contention.

The party is also mulling to prop up local leaders and minority faces following the deliberations at its ‘Chintan Shivir’ held in Rajasthan’s Udaipur city.

The Congress, as per the news agency, has decided to contest three Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan while the party may fall short of numbers for one seat for which it will bank on the support of non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs.

The party has adopted a three-point formula in Rajasthan under which no MLA will be considered for the Rajya Sabha nominations while giving preferences for minority and local faces.

In Chhattisgarh, the Congress is confident to bag two seats in Rajya Sabha.

The party is also expecting one seat each from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

The Congress is also expecting one seat from Jharkhand where it is in alliance with the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has called a meeting of his party MLAs in Ranchi today, but he is said to be unwilling to give the seat to the Congress, ANI reported sources as saying.

Chidambaram, whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending from Maharashtra, is under consideration from Tamil Nadu as the Congress is all set to get the support of alliance partner Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

The G-23 leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Vivek Tankha, are also said to be in contention.

Meanwhile, the names of several leaders from Rahul Gandhi’s team like Ajay Maken and Randeep Surjewala are also under consideration.

Rajeev Shukla, Mukul Wasnik, Pramod Tiwari and Dr Ajoy Kumar are also hoping to bag the nominations.

A tribal leader from Rajasthan and one from the Scheduled Caste from Chhattisgarh are likely to find the grand old party’s approval in the meeting.

Several members of the Rajya Sabha will retire between June 21 and August 1.

The elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats spread across 15 states will take place on June 10.

While 11 seats will fall vacant in Uttar Pradesh, six members each will retire from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, five from Bihar and four each from Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka.

The BJP currently has 95 MPs and the Congress has 29 members in the 245-member house.