Cong fields Sonia Gandhi, Maken, Singhvi for RS polls

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday nominated its former party chief Sonia Gandhi and senior leaders Ajay Maken and Abhishek Singhvi for the Rajya Sabha election to be held on February 27.

Gandhi, who was accompanied by her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra besides former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, filed her nomination papers in Jaipur. The 77-year-old former Congress president is set to enter the Upper House for the first time from Rajasthan. Gandhi will fill the seat that will fall vacant in April after former prime minister Manmohan Sigh completes his Rajya Sabha tenure.

Party treasurer Maken has been fielded from Karnataka and Abhishek Singhvi from Himachal Pradesh. The party has its government in both states. Maken had unsuccessfully contested the Rajya Sabha election from Haryana last year. The Congress also nominated former union minister Renuka Chowdhury as Rajya Sabha candidate from Telangana along with local leader M Anil Kumar Yadav from the southern state where the party came into power in December.

Singhvi would file his nomination for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh on Thursday, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said. Senior party leader and former Union minister Anand Sharma was seeking a Rajya Sabha berth from Himachal, which is his home state. The seat will fall vacant as BJP chief J P Nadda’s tenure will end in April this year. Nadda has been renominated by the party from Gujarat this time.

The biennial elections to fill 56 seats of Rajya Sabha will be held on February 27. The last date for filing of nominations is February 15. The Congress also renominated Syed Naseer Hussain, who is a coordinator in the office of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. This will be Hussain’s second term as a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka. According to a statement, the party has also renominated its Bihar unit chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh from the state. He filed his nomination on Tuesday. Party leader from Karnataka G C Chandrasekhar has also been renominated by the party in the list announced on Wednesday. From Madhya Pradesh, the party has fielded local leader Ashok Singh. It has named Chandrakant Handore as its candidate from Maharashtra.