No Uttarakhand Congress candidate in Rajya Sabha for first time since creation of state

DEHRADUN:

Uttarakhand

sends three members to the Upper House of the Parliament and five

Lok Sabha

members. In 2009, Congress won all five Lok Sabha seats, while in 2014 and 2019 Bharatiya Janata Party swept all the five LS seats of the Himalayan state. At present, BJP has two

Rajya Sabha

members from the state and Congress has one, Pradeep Tamta, whose term is set to end on June 10.

Voting will be done by legislators and with BJP having 47 MLAs in the 70-member House, the party is expected to win the RS seat. On Sunday, BJP had announced the name of Kalpana Saini as its RS nominee. As Congress has only 19 MLAs in the Uttarakhand legislative assembly, the party is unlikely to field its candidate, thereby making it a smooth run for Saini.

Born in Roorkee, Kalpana Saini is presently serving as the chairman of Uttarakhand Other Backward Class Commission. She has been associated with the RSS since 1990. Later, in 1995, she became a councillor in the Roorkee municipal council.

Earlier, during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, BJP won four seats and Congress one. When Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, Congress had one LS member in the form of Narayan Dutt Tiwari. However, all three RS seats had BJP members -- Sushma Swaraj, Manohar Kant Dhyani and Sanghpriya Gautam. In 2002 assembly polls, the first since the state was formed, Congress had come to power. Till 2022, the Congress and the BJP alternatively formed a government and as a result the Congress always had a RS or a LS member for the first 21 years. However, in 2022, BJP retained power with a convincing win.

“A decision on fielding a candidate or not will be taken by seniors, but we do not have the required numbers in the state assembly. Besides, since 2000, this will be for the first time when the Congress will have no representation from the state in Parliament,” Congress state general secretary (organisation) Mathura Dutt Joshi told TOI.


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