With the start of nomination process of polls for three Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana, many prominent leaders of BJP and Congress have intensified their lobbying of party nomination.
The election for three Rajya Sabha seats in the State will be held on March 26 in which 2 seats are expected to go to the ruling BJP-JJP alliance while one seat to Congress to the Upper House of Parliament.
According to BJP insiders, there is a strong lobbying among three Jat veterans of the party former Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu, former Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankhar and party state president Subhash Barala from Jat quota.
Former Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma and from MP Sudha Yadav are also making efforts to go in Rajya Sabha from non-Jat quota.
In Congress, state party state president Kumari Selja is trying to go to Rajya Sabha for the second consecutive term. Her closeness to the Gandhi family, particularly, Sonia Gandhi, eases her path. She also led the party successfully in the assembly polls where Congress won 31 seats, surprising its critics and supporters as well.
After losing the election from Kaithal, former minister and Congress national spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala and former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda's son and former MP Deepender Singh Hooda are also trying to enter the Rajya Sabha. Surjewala is close to Rahul Gandhi while Deepender too of the young brigade is considered close to the former Congress President and the Waynad MP. Basically it is toss up between Selja, Surjewala and Deepender.
The grapevine in political circles is that JJP too is eyeing the Rajya Sabha seat. However, it remains to be seem if the BJP is willing to accommodate a JJP candidate at this point of time as it also enjoys the support of the Indepndent MLAs and there is no threat on the government at this point of time.
Currently, BJP-backed Subhash Chandra and BJP's DP Vats are representing Haryana in the Rajya Sabha.
In February 2014, Selja of Congress became a member of Rajya Sabha and would complete her tenure in April. Ram Kumar Kashyap, former INLD MP, resigned from Rajya Sabha membership when his tenure was nearing completion and INLD was going through a phase of disintegration. He joined the BJP before the Assembly election last year and was subsequently elected MLA from Indri.
Under Section 151-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, if the remaining term of the sitting Rajya Sabha member for the vacant seat is less than one year, then in such a situation, the Election Commission does not go for a by-election for that seat.
The Election Commission on March 3 had announced bypoll to a Rajya Sabha seat from Haryana vacated by former Union minister Birender Singh. Singh resigned after he his son Brijendra Singh got a Lok Sabha ticket and won the election from the BJP. As soon as the son got the ticket, he announced that he would leave Rajya Sabha seat. He resigned after his son's victory in the election
Sources said that while members elected in place of Kumari Selja and Kashyap will serve a full term of six years till 2026, the member elected in place of Birender Singh will have a term for his remaining period till August 2022.
In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the BJP has 40 MLAs while its alliance partner JJP has 10 legislators. The main opposition Congress has strength of 31 members while out of eight independent MLAs, seven have extended support to the BJP-JJP government. The INLD has one member.