Day after Congress announced its Rajya Sabha nominees, actor-turned-politician Nagma on Monday expressed her discontent over not getting a berth in the Upper House of the parliament.
Taking to Twitter, Nagma said, “Sonia Ji, our Congress president had personally committed to accommodating me in RS in 2003/04 when I joined Congress party on her behest. We were not in power then. Since then it is been 18 years, they did not find an opportunity. Mr Imran is accommodated in RS from Maharashtra. I ask am I less deserving.” “Our 18 years of penance also fell short in front of Imran Bhai,” she said earlier.
The Congress on Sunday announced the names of 10 candidates from seven states for the Rajya Sabha elections scheduled to take place on June 10. The names of many prominent leaders are missing from the list leading to voices of dissatisfaction rising in the party.
Randeep Singh Surjewala, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tiwari have been made candidates from Rajasthan. All these three leaders do not belong to Rajasthan.
Congress MLA from Sirohi in Rajasthan, Sanyam Lodha raised the question why no one has been nominated from Rajasthan. “The Congress party should tell what is the reason for not making any Congress leader/worker from Rajasthan, a candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections?” he wrote in a tweet on Sunday.
Pawan Kheda, who hails from Rajasthan, was a contender for Rajya Sabha in Congress. But his name is also not included in the list. After the release of the list, he tweeted, “Maybe there is something missing in my penance.”
The Congress opted for apparently lightweight candidates like Imran Pratapgarhi and Ranjeet Ranjan for the Rajya Sabha polls, contrary to speculation about accommodating veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma. Pratapgarhi, the party’s minority department chairperson and a poet from Uttar Pradesh, has been fielded from Maharashtra.
The Congress has fielded Rajeev Shukla, Ajay Maken, and Jairam Ramesh from Chhattisgarh, Haryana, and Karnataka, respectively.
P Chidambaram, who is an MP in the Rajya Sabha, has once again been given a run from Tamil Nadu, while Ranjeet Ranjan has been fielded from Chhattisgarh. The party has fielded Vivek Tankha as a candidate from Madhya Pradesh.
Reacting to the list, co-incharge of Gujarat Congress Jitendra Baghel asked on Twitter: “Would you tell us how many of these candidates are from OBC/SC/ST?”
Meanwhile, the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on Monday named senior leader Mahua Maji as its candidate for Rajya Sabha polls from Jharkhand.
Earlier, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that the names for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections were declared after a discussion with the party president Shibu Soren. “We discussed names and finally, Guruji (Shibu Soren) decided upon the name of Mahua Maji to be our Rajya Sabha nominee,” said CM Hemant Soren.
Earlier, the Congress Jharkhand unit had expressed its desire to send its candidate from the alliance to Rajya Sabha in the upcoming polls while also seeking “compromise” from partner Jharkhand Mukti Morcha which had fielded party president Shibu Soren to the Upper House in 2020.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Aditya Sahu for Rajya Sabha election from Jharkhand. Sahu is currently holding the position of General Secretary in Jharkhand Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Sahu broke down while Talking to ANI on his ticket confirmation. He said that he had never imagined of going to Rajya Sabha. “I thank all the senior leaders and high command for giving ticket to a person like me who comes from village. It is like lakhs of BJP workers have got tickets through me. This is the difference between Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties… I can say there is no such party other than BJP in the world which makes a common person, a booth level worker as Rajya Sabha candidate,” said Aditya Sahu.
Two seats of Rajya from Jharkhand are falling vacant. BJP has finalized its candidate, while UPA is yet to announce.
Two seats of Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand will go to the polls as the tenures of Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and BJP MP Mahesh Poddar are expiring on July 7. The last date for filing nominations is May 31, while the voting will be held on June 10.
In Uttar Pradesh, after filing nomination for Rajya Sabha polls as the joint candidates of the Rashtriya Lok Dal-Samajwadi Party, Jayant Chaudhary on Monday said that he is hopeful that with the manner in which the alliance has strongly fought so far, it will go ahead together.
“We have completed the procedure. I’m hopeful that with the manner in which the alliance has strongly fought so far, we’ll go ahead together. I thank Akhilesh Yadav & all workers of SP and the alliance,” he told ANI. Earlier today Jayant Chaudhary filed a nomination for Rajya Sabha elections as a joint candidate of Rashtriya Lok Dal and Samajwadi Party.
Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav was also present. Elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats spread across 15 states will take place on June 10.
Two newly-elected Rajya Sabha members Ravichandra Vaddiraju and Aneel Prasad Hegde from Telangana and Bihar took oath on Monday.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu administered the oath to both the members. Vaddiraju and Hegde were elected as members of Rajya Sabha in the bye-election from Telangana and Bihar, respectively. They have been elected to the Rajya Sabha to fill the casual vacancies caused in the Upper House due to the resignation of Banda Prakash and the passing away of Mahendra Prasad.
Vaddiraju, a TRS leader took an oath in Telugu while JDU leader Hegde took the oath in Hindi.