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  India   Sonia Gandhi fields three jurists for Rajya Sabha poll

Sonia Gandhi fields three jurists for Rajya Sabha poll

AGE CORRESPONDENT
Published : May 29, 2016, 3:49 am IST
Updated : May 29, 2016, 3:49 am IST

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday fielded three jurists — P.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi. (Photo: PTI)
 Congress President Sonia Gandhi. (Photo: PTI)

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday fielded three jurists — P. Chidambaram (from Maharashtra), Kapil Sibal (Uttar Pradesh) and Vivek Tankha (Madhya Pradesh) — for the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha while renominating Ambika Soni (Punjab) and Jairam Ramesh and Oscar Fernandes (Karnataka) to the Upper House.

The growing representation of lawyers shows the Congress leadership’s dependence on them after the debacle in the Lok Sabha and state Assembly polls and the cases against party leaders at a time when the BJP is drawing mileage from dissension in the Congress Legislature Party in different states, as seen earlier in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The others nominated are Chaya Verma from Chhattisgarh and Pradeep Tamta from Uttarakhand. The party announced eight candidates from seven states — Maharashtra, Punjab, UP, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Mr Chidambaram’s name came as a surprise. He was expected to be fielded from Karnataka or Uttarakhand, but the chief ministers in these states were said to have opposed fielding an “outsider”, Congress sources said.

The Congress won two Lok Sabha seats and 42 Assembly seats in Maharashtra in the general elections and the state Assembly polls in 2014 under the leadership of Prithviraj Chavan.

Mr Chidambaram is the second non-Maharashtrian (he belongs to Tamil Nadu) after Rajeev Shukla (UP) to contest the Rajya Sabha election from Maharashtra.

The Shiv Sena might make it an issue in the upcoming BMC polls.

Location: India, Delhi, New Delhi