Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, was the president of the Congress for nearly 22 years from 1998 to 2022, and has served as a five-time Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.
Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha election from Rajasthan on Wednesday. Also present were Party MP Rahul Gandhi, party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, and state party president Govind Singh Dotasra.
The move to file nominations for Rajya Sabha comes ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls expected to be held in April-May this year.
Rajasthan has 10 Rajya Sabha seats, and in the upcoming biennial elections, three seats in the State are up for grabs. The ruling BJP is expected to secure two of the seats, while the Opposition Congress will get one, based on their respective strengths in the State Assembly.
The BJP has 115 and the Congress 70 MLAs in the 200-member State Assembly, and a minimum of 67 votes will be required to win one Rajya Sabha seat in the event of a contest.
The Congress party announced the first list of candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha Biennial Elections, with Sonia Gandhi being approved for Rajasthan and Dr. Akhilesh Prasad Singh for Bihar, among others.
The last day for filing nomination papers is February 15, and the term for Rajya Sabha MPs is six years with elections being held every two years for 33 per cent of the seats.
Currently, the Rajya Sabha has a strength of 245 members, with 233 representing the States and Union territories and 12 being nominated by the President.
Members of the state legislative assemblies choose Rajya Sabha members through an indirect election system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote (SVT).
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from ANI)