Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is set to enter Rajya Sabha for the first time and will file her nomination papers from Rajasthan for the upcoming polls to the Upper House, party sources said on Tuesday.
Barely two months before the Lok Sabha election, Gandhi will be filing her nomination papers in Jaipur on Wednesday. Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are likely to accompany her.
Gandhi, who represented Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, will not contest the next general election. She has been a five-term Lok Sabha MP and was first elected in 1999 after taking over as the Congress president.
”She is likely to file nomination for Rajya Sabha on Wednesday,” a source said.
A total of 56 members of Rajya Sabha from 15 states are retiring in April and the election to the seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.
The Congress is comfortably placed to win one of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan for which elections will be held. The seat will fall vacant after former prime minister Manmohan Singh completes his six-year tenure in April.
She will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter Rajya Sabha after former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was a member of the Upper House from August 1964 to February 1967.
The party has not formally declared any candidate for the biennial Rajya Sabha elections.
Gandhi had announced in 2019 that it would be her last Lok Sabha election.
Speculation is rife that her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could contest from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency after Sonia Gandhi opted out this time.
Priyanka Gandhi may be considered for Amethi Lok Sabha constituency, previously held by Rahul Gandhi, but a final decision on whether she will contest the Lok Sabha election is yet to be taken by the party leadership, the sources said.
That Sonia Gandhi chose to contest from Rajasthan and not from a southern state like Telangana or Karnataka, where the party is also comfortably placed to win, is also a signal that the Congress’ first family is not abandoning the Hindi-heartland.
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