Jaipur, Feb 14: Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, submitted her nomination on Wednesday for the Rajya Sabha election from Rajasthan. In attendance were state party president Govind Singh Dotasra, former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, party MP Rahul Gandhi, and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Congress Parliamentary Party, served as the party’s president for nearly twenty-two years, from 1998 to 2022. She is an Uttar Pradesh native who has been a member of the Lok Sabha five times. The Rajya Sabha nomination process is underway ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, which are anticipated to take place in April and May of this year.Rajasthan has ten seats in the Rajya Sabha. Three State seats are up for grabs in the next biennial elections. Based on their relative strengths in the State Assembly, the ruling BJP is expected to receive two seats, while the opposition Congress is expected to receive one. The two BJP contenders are Madan Rathore, a former Sumerpur MLA, and Chunnilal Garasiya, a former minister and vice president of the BJP State. In the 200-member State Assembly, the BJP has 115 MLAs while the Congress has 70. In the case of a battle, one Rajya Sabha seat will require a minimum of 67 votes to be won.Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, will retire in April of this year. He was most recently elected from Rajasthan to the Rajya Sabha. This April, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav’s term will expire. In addition, Kirodi Lal Meena of the BJP resigned, leaving one Rajya Sabha seat in the State empty. The initial slate of candidates for the next Rajya Sabha Biennial Elections, which will take place in several states, was released by the Congress party on Wednesday.“Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has approved the candidature of Sonia Gandhi from Rajasthan and Dr. Akhilesh Prasad Singh from Bihar,” reads an official statement from the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Chandrakant Handore from Maharashtra and Abhishek Manu Singhvi from Himachal Pradesh have also been fielded. February 15 is the deadline for submitting nomination materials. Members of the Rajya Sabha have a six-year term, and elections are held for 33% of the seats every two years. There are 245 members of the Rajya Sabha at the moment.Twelve of the 245 members are presidentially nominated, while 233 of the members are representatives of the States and Union territories of Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, and Puducherry (as of October 31, 2019). Twelve veterans in the fields of science, art, literature, athletics, and other fields have been personally nominated by the President. Each state is allotted a specific number of representatives to the Upper House based on its population. The Rajya Sabha is chosen by members of the state legislative assemblies using a single transferable vote (SVT) indirect election method that uses proportional representation.
