Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and Rural Development Minister Birender Singh on Tuesday filed their nominations for the by-elections to the two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana and are set to enter the Upper House uncontested.
The two Ministers, who were inducted in the Union Cabinet on October 27, are not members of the Parliament and required to be an MP within six months of being a Minister.Prabhu, a former Shiv Sena leader, quit the party to join BJP just before being sworn in as Railway Minister, while Singh was earlier a Rajya Sabha member of Congress from Haryana but quit his seat to join BJP ahead of the October 15 assembly elections in the state.
Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar, several Haryana ministers and all the BJP MlAs were present when the two filed their nominations before Returning Officer Sumit Kumar, who is also the Secretary of Haryana Assembly.
Tuesday was the last day of filing of nominations for the by-elections. With no paper being filed by any other candidate, both Prabhu and Singh are all set to enter the Upper House uncontested. In the 90-member Assembly, BJP has 47 MlAs and it also enjoys support of five more legislators including the lone BSP member.
Singh, who as Congress Rajya Sabha member, had last year made a sensational claim that berths in the Upper House were available for Rs 100 crore, today joked when asked if he had paid any amount now, saying "apna to sau rupyein mein kaam chal gaya (my job was done in just Rs 100)".
Railway Minister Prabhu, said, "It is a matter of immense happiness and pride for me that I got the opportunity to file nomination from a state like Haryana... I am happy because this will give me an opportunity to represent the people of Haryana in Parliament... Prior to this I had been elected to the lok Sabha on four occasions from Maharashtra."
The scrutiny of nominations will take place on November 26 and the last date of withdrawal is November 28.The by-elections were necessitated as the seats had fallen vacant after Birender Singh resigned from his seat on August 28 and Ranbir Singh of Indian National lok Dal (INlD) quit on November 1 after being elected to the assembly from Nalwa seat.
Haryana already has three union ministers, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj (who belongs to Haryana), Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh (Gurgaon MP) and Minister of State Krishan Pal (Faridabad MP).The state has five seats in Rajya Sabha and at present, three members are representing Haryana in the Rajya Sabha, including Shadi lal Batra and Kumari Selja of Congress and Ram Kumar from Indian National lok Dal (INlD). With the election of Prabhu and Singh, all the vacancies would be filled.