Nadda, Sonia among 41 elected unopposed to RS

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP chief J P Nadda and new party entrant Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan were among the 41 candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday while Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh will witness polling on February 27. The BJP has won the highest number of 20 seats, followed by the Congress (6), Trinamool Congress (4), YSR Congress (3), RJD (2), BJD (2) and NCP, Shiv Sena, BRS and JD(U) one each. As there were no other candidates in the fray on these 41 seats, the respective returning officers declared them winners on the last date of withdrawal of nominations.
The biennial elections were announced for February 27 in 56 seats. While 50 members will retire on April 2, six will do so on April 3. Now polling will be held for 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh, four in Karnataka and one seat in Himachal Pradesh from 9 am to 4 pm and counting will be held on the same day from 5 pm onwards. Nadda and the party’s other nominees Jasvantsinh Parmar, Mayank Nayak and diamond baron Govind bhai Dholakia were declared winners from Gujarat.  The Congress, which has only 15 MLAs, and other opposition parties had preferred not to put up candidates against the BJP, which has 156 legislators in the 182-member Gujarat assembly.