All three Rajya Sabha candidates from Haryana---two from BJP, Ram Chander Jangra and Dushyant Kumar Gautam and the lone Congress nominee Deepender Singh Hooda, are set to be elected unopposed for the Upper House of Parliament from Haryana after they filed their nomination here on Friday.
They are set to enter Rajya Sabha unopposed as there was no other candidate in the fray for the three seats. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 18.
While Jangra and Gautam were accompanied by Chief Minister M L Khattar, Home Minister Anil Vij, State BJP chief Subhash Barala and some party legislators, Deepender was accompanied by a majority of Congress legislators from the state including his father and former chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, to submit nomination papers to Returning Officer Ajit Balaji Joshi.
Deepender had been a three-time Lok Sabha member from Rohtak. In 2019, he narrowly lost to Arvind Sharma of the BJP as the saffron party won all 10 parliamentary seats from the state.
The two Rajya Sabha vacancies are due to resignation of BJP's Ram Kumar Kashyap and the expiry of Congress leader Kumari Selja's term next month. Jangra and Deepender entered the race to fill these vacancies which will last a full term of six years.
A third vacancy which necessitated a bypoll arose following the resignation of former Union minister and BJP leader Birender Singh and Gautam is set to enter the Upper House for the remainder of the term.
Talking to reporters, BJP nominees Jangra and Gautam expressed their gratitude to the party high command and Haryana Chief Minister for sending them to the Upper House.
Earlier, Congress and BJP called their respective MLAs to reach Chandigarh during the nomination. Ahead of nomination on Friday, BJP MLAs met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at the auditorium in the Vidhan Sabha. Both the candidates Dushyant Kumar Gautam and Ramchandra Jangra were introduced to MLAs in the meeting. On the other hand, to ensure victory of the Congress candidate,
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Talking to reporter, Deepender Singh Hooda downplayed any differences in the party on his nomination. “Soon after my name was declared on Thursday evening, I met State Congress chief Kumari Selja in New Delhi to seek her blessing. All the party MLAs and leaders are united. Due to some reason, MLAs like Kiran Choudhary and Kuldeep Bishnoi could not attend the nomination,” he said.
In the 90-member Haryana assembly, the BJP has 40 MLAs while its alliance partner JJP has 10. The main opposition Congress has 31 members while six out of seven independent MLAs have extended support to the BJP-JJP coalition government. The INLD has one MLA while one member belongs to the Haryana Lokhit Party.