From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Congress is likely to win 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the biennial elections slated on June 10 as against its 7 sitting MPs retiring while the BJP’s strength will fall from 25 to 20. The Congress strength in the Upper House will thus go up from the current 29 to 33.
Top Congress leaders, who are eying another term, include former union ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and Anand Sharma. AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Singh Surjewala and Ajay Maken are also waiting in the wing.
Seven Congress MPs who are among 55 retiring members of the Rajya Sabha for which the biennial elections are taking place are: P Chidambaram (Maharashtra), Jairam Ramesh (Karnataka), Ambika Soni (Punjab), advocate Vivek Tankha (MP), Pradeep Tamta (Uttarakhand) Chhaya Verma (Chhattisgarh) and Kapil Sibal.
The Congress is yet to declare its candidates, but its poll managers are confident that it will win 2 or 3 seats in Rajasthan, 2 in Chhattisgarh, where also it is in power, and one seat each in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu, where it shares power with other like minded parties.
It is also likely to get one seat each in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka. Chidambaram may return this time from his home state Tamil Nadu where the ruling DMK has offered one seat to the Congress. If cleared for the lone seat from Karnataka, it will be the fourth term of Jairam Ramesh.
In the BJP-ruled Haryana, former PCC chief Kumari Selja dropped from the post only recently, AICC general secretary and chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala and Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of late Chief Minister Bhajan Lal are trying to get nomination for a single seat the party can win.
Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who is presently leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, wants the seat allotted to Congress deputy leader Anand Sharma, who has to be accommodated since he cannot win from the BJP-ruled his home state Himachal Pradesh. Both Hooda and Anand Sharma are colleagues in arms in the Group of 23 that revolted against the Gandhis in 2020.
