Of the total 61 vacant Rajya Sabha seats, elections were held on June 19 for 19 seats spread over 10 states. Candidates on the remaining 42 seats were elected unopposed.
Out of the 19 seats on which elections were held, the BJP won eight while the Congress could register victory on four seats. While the total strength of the Upper House has gone up to 244, the BJP’s tally has risen to 86 and that of the Congress has increased to 41.
Of the 61 victorious candidates, while some were members of the Lok Sabha at some point in time in the past, others are entering Parliament for the first time.
Prominent among the first-timers in the Rajya Sabha include Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge, KC Venugopal and Shaktisinh Gohil; BJP’s Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narhari Amin and AIADMK’s M Thambidurai.
At least nine of these 61 MPs are heavyweights. They include BJP’s Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narhari Amin, its ally AIADMK’s M Thambidurai and opposition leaders HD Deve Gowda, Mallikarjun Kharge, Digvijaya Singh, Shaktisinh Gohil and KC Venugopal.
Both the BJP heavyweights are new entrants to the party from the Congress. Their defence of BJP and attack on Congress in Parliament is yet to be tested.
Thambidurai’s stand will also depend upon the blow-hot-blow-cold relationship between the AIADMK and the BJP.
As against them, the opposition attack is likely to get sharpened by their veterans such as HD Deve Gowda, Mallikarjun Kharge and Digvijaya Singh.
HD DEVE GOWDA
Born on May 18, 1933, Deve Gowda was the prime minister from June 1, 1996 to 21 April 1997. He was earlier the chief minister of Karnataka from 1994 to 1996.
Gowda was last a Lok Sabha MP till 2019, representing Hassan in Karnataka. He lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election to the BJP’s GS Basavaraj in Tumkur constituency of Karnataka.
He will now represent his Karnataka state in the Rajya Sabha.
MALLIKARJUN KHARGE
The 77-year-old Congress leader was railways and labour and employment minister. He was Lok Sabha MP from Gulbarga in Karnataka from 2009 to 2019.
In fact, he was leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha in the previous term. In the 2019 general election, he lost to Umesh Jadhav of the BJP in Kalburgi constituency.
DIGVIJAYA SINGH
The two-term former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh was Lok Sabha MP in 1991 from Rajgarh, his home district. He is considered to have groomed Rahul Gandhi in politics.
He has been a Rajya Sabha member since 2014. After Friday’s victory, it will be the vetran leader’s second consecutive term in the Upper House.
JYOTIRADITYA SCINDIA
The scion of the erstwhile Gwalior princely state, Jyotiraditya Scindia is a four-term former Lok Sabha MP since 2002 till he lost the 2019 general election. He was also a Union minister in the Manmohan Singh government.
Son of former Union minister late Madhavrao Scindia, he represented Guna in Madhya Pradesh from the Congress party. He was considered close to the Gandhi family.
However, he found himself sidelined by the then chief minister Kamal Nath and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh. Moreover, the Gandhi family did not come to his rescue. Peeved over these, he quit the Congress earlier this year along with several of his supporters, including party MLAs.
This led to the downfall of the Kamal Nath government and coming back to power of the BJP led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
SHAKTISINH GOHIL
A senior Congress leader from Gujarat, Gohil is a former minister in the state.
He is the Congress party’s in charge of Bihar and a national spokesperson.
With his election to the Rajya Sabha, he is entering Parliament for the first time.
NARHARI AMIN
A political heavyweight in Gujarat, he was inthe Congress for most part of his career. He has crossed over to the BJP after he was denied the assembly ticket in 2012.
A former deputy chief minister of Gujarat, Amin was also the president of the state cricket association.
He is also entering Parliament for the very first time.
SHIBU SOREN
President of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Shibu Soren is a five-term Lok Sabha and a one-term Rajya Sabha MP. He was Jharkhand chief minister and later Union minister in Manmohan Singh cabinet holding the crucial coal ministry portfolio.
However, he was forced to resign in 2006 after he was found guilty in the kidnapping and murder of his former personal secretary Shashinath Jha by the Tees Hazari court.
However,the Delhi high court acquitted him a year later.
It would be Soren’s second stint in the Rajya Sabha.
KC VENUGOPAL
A two-term Lok Sabha MP from Alappuzha in Kerala an a former Union minister in the Manmohan Singh government, KC Venugopal is a dyed-in-wool Congressman. He was the chief of the Kerala unit of Indian Youth Congress. He was Congress MLA for three terms and a state minister in Oomen Chandy government from 2004 to 2006.
At present, Venugopal is a powerful Congress national general secretary considered close to Rahul Gandhi.
The 57-year-old leader has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan.
M THAMBIDURAI
A five-term former Lok Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu, he won on AIADMK ticket. He was a Union minister from 1998 to 1999 during Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Thamidurai, 73, was also the deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha for one full term from 2014 during Narendra Modi's first stint as prime minister.
This is also his first stint as a Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu.
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