29 likely to be elected to Rajya Sabha unopposed

All 29 candidates announced so far by six parties for the February 27 Rajya Sabha elections are set to win unopposed as none of the parties have put up any extra nominees yet to trigger a contest.

Fifty-six seats of the Upper House will go to the polls later this month to fill up vacancies that will arise in April.

As on Tuesday, six parties including the Bharatiya Janata Party, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Biju Janata Dal and YSR Congress Party have announced 29 candidates.

The Congress is yet to announce any names though people aware of the developments said former party chief Sonia Gandhi is likely to file her papers from Rajasthan

The polling will be held on February 27 and the results will be declared the same day. The last date of filing nomination is February 15.

The Rajya Sabha has already bid farewell to a batch of lawmakers that included former prime minister Manmohan Singh. BJP chief JP Nadda, former Union minister Prakash Javadekar, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi and BJD leader Amar Patnaik.

The terms of a number of Union ministers, including Ashwini Vaishnaw, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mansukh Mandviya, Narayan Rane Rajeev Chadrasekhar, and V Muraleedharan are also ending in April.

All eyes are on Maharashtra where Rajya Sabha polls will be held for six seats. Under the current circumstances, the BJP-led alliance is set to win four seats. But with former Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan quitting the Congress and joining the BJP on Monday, the number game in the state might change further in favour of the BJP. If a substantial number of Congress lawmakers go away with Chavan, the Congress might lose a Rajya Sabha seat.

In Maharashtra, each party needs 42 MLAs to win a seat. The Congress currently has 43 MLAs in the state.

In the BJP list, Sudhanshu Trivedi is, so far, the only sitting lawmaker who has got a fresh nomination. The BJP has fielded Shamik Bhattacharya, RPN Singh, Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, Sadhna Singh, Amarpal Maurya, Sangita Balwant, Navin Jain, Mahendra Bhatt, Narayana Krishanasa Bhandage, Subhash Barala, Devendra Pratap Singh, Dharmsheela Gupta, Bhim Singh, Chunnilal Garasiya and Madan Rathore as candidates.

The Trinamool Congress has announced Sagarika Ghose, Sushmita Dev and Nadimul Haque as its candidates. The JD(U) announced Nitish Kumar’s trusted aide Sanjay Jha’s candidature while the BJD fielded Debashish Samantray and Subhasish Kuntia.

The Samajwadi Party retained Jaya Bachchan and nominated Ramjilal Suman and Alok Ranjan.

YSR Congress Party fielded YV Subba Reddy, G Babu Rao and M Raghunadha Reddy.