A candidate each of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its alliance partner Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and the Opposition comprising the Congress and the All-India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Assam on Wednesday.
Returning Officer Amarendra Deka said the three were declared winners ahead of the election date of March 26 as there were no contenders.
Former Congress MP Bhubaneswar Kalita will be representing the BJP in the Upper House, while Biswajit Daimary will represent the BPF for the third straight term. The current terms of Mr. Kalita, Mr. Daimary and Sanjay Sinh, who joined the BJP from the Congress, end in April.
The third seat went to former journalist Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, who has been one of the leading activists against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, in Assam. He was the Congress-AIUDF combine’s consensus candidate.
Mr. Bhuyan, who came under flak for “holding the hands of the AIUDF” to get the Rajya Sabha berth, justified his decision. “I had no intention of becoming an MP and never sought a ticket. I agreed to be the candidate of the Congress and the AIUDF as both have vehemently opposed the CAA,” he said. He thanked the AIUDF chief and perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal for nominating him.
5 elected in West Bengal
All five candidates in the fray from West Bengal were elected unopposed to the Upper House on Wednesday.
Mausam Benazir Noor, Arpita Ghosh, Dinesh Trivedi and Subrata Bakshi of the Trinamool Congress and Bikash Ranjan Bhattachrya of the Left-Congress combine were given the Certificate of Election at the end of the time for withdrawal of nominations on Wednesday.
The nomination of Dinesh Bajaj, TMC-supported independent candidate, was cancelled on Tuesday after it was found to be incomplete.
3 elected in Haryana
BJP candidates Ram Chander Jangra and Dushyant Kumar Gautam and Congress’s Deepender Singh Hooda were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana on Wednesday.
Two Rajya Sabha seats had fallen vacant following the resignation of BJP’s Ram Kumar Kashyap and the completion of the term of Congress’s Kumari Selja. Mr. Hooda and Mr. Jangra fought for these seats. A third Rajya Sabha seat saw election on account of the resignation of former Union Minister Birender Singh. Mr. Gautam was in the fray for this seat.
