No Rajya Sabha seat for Sheila Dikshit, Kumari Selja gets ticket

Union Minister Kumari Selja was named the Congress nominee for Rajya Sabha elections, putting an end to speculation that former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit could be brought to the Upper House from Haryana.

The Congress also nominated Sultanpur MP Sanjay Singh from Assam besides re-nominating Assam Pradesh Congress Committee chief Bhubaneswar Kalita from the state.

Dikshit was being talked about as a probable candidate from Haryana where several local leaders were also aspirants. Five names were suggested from Haryana.

The former Delhi chief minister was also being talked about as the probable nominee from Himachal Pradesh but there, too the high command brought Viplove Thakur as a candidate.

Sanjay Singh hails from Amethi and holds considerable influence there. Amethi is the constituency of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi while Sonia Gandhi contests from neighbouring Rae Bareli. There was earlier speculation that Singh could join the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Congress general secretaries Digvijay Singh and Madhusudan Mistri were among the five Congress nominees for Rajya Sabha elections announced on Monday.

From Andhra Pradesh, Congress re-nominated all the three sitting Rajya Sabha MPs, K V P Ramachandra Rao, M A Khan and T Subbarami Reddy. Khan hails from Hyderabad.

The party had on Sunday announced the names of seven candidates, including Motilal Vora, Murli Deora and Ranjib Biswal from Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha respectively. Hussain Dalwai was also re-nominated from Maharashtra.         

Other nominees were Haji Abdul Salam from Manipur, and Wansuk Syiem from Meghalaya.

Tuesday is the last date for filing nominations for the February 7 polls and the scrutiny will be held tomorrow. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is January 31.

Image: Kumari Selja and Sheila Dikshit