The Congress party Wednesday announced the candidature of former Mumbai mayor Chandrakant Handore for the Rajya Sabha polls from Maharashtra. A Dalit leader from Mumbai, Handore had lost the legislative council polls in 2022 despite the Congress having enough votes, newswire PTI reported.
Handore, who has risen from the ranks, was a minister in the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government.
Handore`s candidature comes as a boost for the Maharashtra Congress as the party leaders and workers had hoped that the central leadership will nominate a party worker from the state.
In the last Rajya Sabha polls held in 2022, the Congress had nominated Imran Pratapgarhi from Maharashtra.
A total of 56 members of the Rajya Sabha from 15 states are retiring in April and the election to the seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.
Meanwhile, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi Wednesday filed her nomination papers for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls from Rajasthan.
Her children Rahul Gandhi and Piyanka Gandhi, former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, PCC chief Govind Singh Dotasra, leader of opposition Tikaram Jully were present at the time of the nomination filing in the assembly building.
Before filing nomination, Sonia Gandhi met with the party MLAs in the opposition lobby of the assembly.
The Congress is comfortably placed to win one of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan for which elections will be held. The seat will fall vacant after former prime minister Manmohan Singh completes his six-year tenure in April.
It will be Sonia Gandhi`s first term in the Upper House after serving five terms as a Lok Sabha MP.
The 77-year-old, who represented Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, will not contest the next general elections. She was first elected as an MP in 1999 after taking over as the Congress president.
In a post on X earlier in the day, Gehlot said, “We heartily welcome the announcement of respected Smt. Sonia Gandhi ji as the Rajya Sabha candidate from the Congress Party, who renounced the post of Prime Minister.”
“Today her announcement as Rajya Sabha candidate from Rajasthan is a matter of happiness for the entire state and with this announcement all the old memories have been refreshed,” he added.
A total of 56 members of Rajya Sabha from 15 states are retiring in April and the election to the seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.
Sonia Gandhi will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter Rajya Sabha after former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was a member of the Upper House from August 1964 to February 1967.
The party has not formally declared any candidate for the biennial Rajya Sabha elections.
Gandhi had announced in 2019 that it would be her last Lok Sabha election.
Speculation is rife that her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could contest from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency after Sonia Gandhi opted out this time.
That Sonia Gandhi chose to contest from Rajasthan and not from a southern state like Telangana or Karnataka, where the party is also comfortably placed to win, is also a signal that the Congress` first family is not abandoning the Hindi-heartland. (With inputs from PTI)
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