Congress not to field candidates in Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat

Gandhinagar: Due to a lack of enough numbers, the main opposition Congress party has decided not to field its candidates in the upcoming four-seat Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat. It means that polling will not be required for the election of these seats and all four candidates of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be declared victorious after scrutiny of their nominations. The last date for filing nominations is 15 February, which means that by that time it will be known who are the four faces selected by Prime Minister Narendrabhai Modi for Rajya Sabha.

Four-seat Rajya Sabha election is scheduled caused by the retirement of the existing 6-year term of Rajya Sabha members – Parshottam Rupala (BJP), Mansukh Mandaviya(BJP), Naran Rathwa(Congress), and Ami Yagnik(Congress). Both Rupala and Mandaviya are Union cabinet ministers. As the BJP believes in caste representations and balancing, it’s noteworthy that Rupala is Kadva Patel and Madaviya is Leuva Patel.

Congress in Gujarat has just 15 MLAs and it can’t win any Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat. The leader of the opposition Amit Chavda has said that the party is therefore not going to field any candidates. In April this year, when the terms of four outgoing Rajya Sabha members will end, the Congress party will be left with only one Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, who is Shaktisinh Gohil. Congress has no member of parliament elected from Gujarat in Lok Sabha. This will be the worst tally for the Gujarat Congress in parliament ever.

Rajya Sabha seats are decided by the strength of MLAs in the State assembly. In the year 2022 regular elections of Gujarat Assembly, Congress could win only 17 seats. As it is not even 10 percent of the total 182 seats, Congress has not been able to claim the post of the leader of opposition in the State assembly. Moreover, two Congress MLAs have recently resigned to join the BJP. It makes just 15-seat strength for Congress in Gujarat assembly. The Lok Sabha general elections are set to happen in April-May this year. Most opinion polls and trends suggest that Congress is not likely to get any single seat in Gujarat. In the last two general elections, BJP under the leadership of son of soil Narendra Modi as Prime Ministerial candidate had won all 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat.

After being proven wrong several times, the journalistic and political pandit circles in Gujarat have completely given up when it comes to speculating the probable candidates for Rajya Sabha polls. There’s great curiosity in political circles about who is going to be chosen by PM Modi as the candidate for the four-seat Rajya Sabha election. DeshGujarat