Rajya Sabha bypolls: Bittu elected unopposed from Rajasthan, Kiran from Haryana

The Union minister of state for railways and food processing industry Ravneet Singh Bittu was elected unopposed as a member of Rajya Sabha (RS) from Rajasthan after the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers ended on Tuesday, election officials said. From Haryana, former four-time Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry of the BJP too was elected unopposed.

From Rajasthan, three candidates had filed nomination papers and one of them was BJP’s dummy candidate. The paper of independent candidate Babita Wadhwani was cancelled during scrutiny on August 22.

Election officer Mahavir Prasad Sharma, who is also the principal secretary of the Rajasthan legislative assembly, presented the victory certificate to Yogendra Singh Tanwar, authorised to receive the certificate on behalf of the elected candidate. The term of this seat will end on June 21, 2026.

The bypoll to the lone vacant Rajya Sabha seat in Rajasthan was necessitated after Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, who served the seat since June 2020, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kerala’s Alappuzha.

This will be the first upper house stint for 48-year-old Bittu, grandson of former Punjab CM Beant Singh who was assassinated by militants in Punjab secretariat complex in August 1995. Known for his views against Khalistan leaders, Bittu also remained a three-time Lok Sabha MP since 2009 from Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahib constituencies as a Congress candidate.

Ahead of the general election this year, he switched to the BJP in March and contested the Lok Sabha election from Ludhiana against Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring but lost by a margin of 20,942 votes. Despite his loss, Bittu’s induction into the union ministry was viewed as a move by the BJP to woo the Sikh community as the party’s overall vote share was jumped to nearly 19% in the Lok Sabha poll this year from only 6.6% during the 2022 Punjab assembly election.

Meanwhile, Kiran Choudhry, flanked by chief minister Nayab Singh Saini and other senior BJP leaders, received her election certificate from Saket Kumar, returning officer and managing director of Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam. The term for this Rajya Sabha seat will end on April 9, 2026. The seat became vacant after the incumbent, Deepender Singh Hooda of the Congress, was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Rohtak constituency.

Thanking senior BJP leaders, Choudhry stated that her unopposed election was a victory for the BJP and a testament to the developmental work done by the party across the state.

CM Nayab Singh Saini criticised the Opposition, asserting that by not contesting the Rajya Sabha election, the Opposition had effectively surrendered and conceded defeat. Saini also highlighted that for the first time all Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana are represented by the BJP.

“Those who claimed that our government was in the minority have been proven wrong. It is the Congress, not the BJP, that is in the minority,” Saini said, adding that the Congress lacked the courage to contest the Rajya Sabha elections.