Pawar among 37 elected unopposed RS ELECTIONS

New Delhi, March 18: NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Union minister Ramdas Athawale and Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh were among 37 candidates elected unopposed on Wednesday to Rajya Sabha as the deadline for withdrawal of nomination ended.

Nominations had been filed for 55 Rajya Sabha seats in 17 states for the March 26 election. Out of these, candidates were declared elected unopposed to all seven seats in Maharashtra, six seats in Tamil Nadu, two seats each in Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Telangana; four seats in Odisha, five seats each in Bihar and West Bengal; three seats in Assam and one seat in Himachal Pradesh by the returning officers as no other candidates were in the fray.

Priyanka Chaturvedi, who had quit the Congress last year and joined the Shiv Sena, AIADMK leader and former Lok Sabha deputy speaker M Thambidurai, veteran lawyer K.T.S.Tulsi and Congress party’s Deepender Singh Hooda were among other prominent candidates.

Polls will be held on March 26 for the remaining 18 RS seats — four each in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, three each in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two in Jharkhand and one each in Manipur and Meghalaya.

NCP leader Pawar and Union minister of state for social justice Ramdas Athawale, both sitting members, were among seven elected unopposed from Maharashtra. The others elected from the state were BJP’s Udayanraje Bhosale and Bhagwat Karad; Congress general secretary Rajiv Satav, Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and former

NCP

Khan.

Gujarat is also expected to witness a close contest with three candidates from the BJP — Abhay Bharadwaj, Ramilaben Bara and Narhari Amin — and two from the Congress — Shaktisinh Gohil and Bharatsinh Solanki — filing their nomination papers. For the two seats in Jharkhand, the ruling JMM-Congress-RJD alliance has fielded JMM chief Shibu Soren and Shahzada Anwar, while state BJP president Deepak Prakash is the party’s candidate. In Rajasthan, where elections will be held to three RS seats, the Congress has nominated AICC general secretary K.C.Venugopal and state general secretary Neeraj Dangi, whereas the BJP has named Rajendra Gehlot as its candidate and its senior leader Omkar Singh Lakhawat is also in the fray. minister

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