Rajya Sabha election: Sonia Gandhi files nomination from Rajasthan

Jaipur: Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday filed her nomination papers for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls from Rajasthan. She landed at the Jaipur airport accompanied by her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. She was received by senior leader and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot and others.

Before filing nomination, Sonia Gandhi met with the party MLAs in the opposition lobby of the assembly. 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.

It will be Sonia Gandhi's first term in the Upper House after serving five terms as a Lok Sabha MP.  The 77-year-old, who represented Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, will not contest the next general elections. She was first elected as an MP in 1999 after taking over as the Congress president.

Ashok Gehlot said on X, "We heartily welcome the announcement of respected Smt. Sonia Gandhi ji as the Rajya Sabha candidate from the Congress Party, who renounced the post of Prime Minister."

"Today her announcement as Rajya Sabha candidate from Rajasthan is a matter of happiness for the entire state and with this announcement all the old memories have been refreshed," he added.

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 the 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 the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency after Sonia Gandhi opted out this time.

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.