Kiran Choudhry quits Haryana assembly, likely to be fielded by BJP in RS bypoll

Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry, who quit the Congress to join the BJP in June, resigned from the Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday. She is likely to be nominated as the BJP’s candidate for the Rajya Sabha byelection.

The ruling BJP looks set to win the seat from Haryana unopposed as the Congress has declared that it will not be fielding a candidate for the Upper House byelection.

In the 90-member House, the ruling BJP with 41 MLAs is supported by an Independent, Nayan Pal Rawat, and HLP MLA Gopal Kanda.

The seat fell vacant after incumbent Deepender Singh Hooda of the Congress got elected to the Lok Sabha from Rohtak constituency.

The term of this Upper House seat ends on April 9, 2026.

According to the schedule announced by the Election Commission, nominations can be filed from August 14 to 21. The last date of withdrawal of candidature is August 27. Polling and counting of ballots, if required, will be held on September 3.

Choudhry’s decision to resign from the assembly comes a day before the August 21 deadline to file the nomination papers.

When contacted, Choudhry confirmed that she had resigned from the assembly.

Meanwhile, the BJP government in the state has convened a meeting of the legislature party on Tuesday evening. The party is likely to formally announce its candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat. BJP sources say in all probability Choudhry will be fielded.

Earlier, Haryana assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta had dismissed a petition seeking disqualification of Choudhry from being a member of the House according to the anti-defection law.

The deputy leader of the Congress legislature party in the assembly, Aftab Ahmed, and chief whip BB Batra had filed a petition seeking her disqualification in terms of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution. The Congress petition said that according to Section 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Schedule pertaining to disqualification on ground of defection, a member of a House belonging to any political party shall be disqualified for being a member of the House if he or she has voluntarily given up his or her membership of such political party.

The Speaker, however, dismissed the disqualification petition on technical grounds.