PC, Sibal, Jairam Cong’s RS nominees

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 28

After days of hectic deliberations, the Congress today nominated former ministers Ambika Soni, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh to the Rajya Sabha for the upcoming biennial elections.

The party today named eight candidates for the RS polls, including senior leader Oscar Fernandes from Karnataka, Vyapam case lawyer Vivek Tankha from Madhya Pradesh, OBC leader Chhaya Verma from Chhattisgarh and Dalit leader Pradeep Tamta from Uttarakhand.

While Soni has been re-nominated from Punjab, former Finance Minister Chidambaram is all set to enter the Upper House from Maharashtra where Avinash Pande is the outgoing member. Former HRD and Telecom Minister Sibal has been nominated from Uttar Pradesh with the ruling Samajwadi Party expected to back him.

Also among re-nominated members are Jairam and Oscar. Jairam is returning from Karnataka because the Congress has no presence left in Andhra Pradesh which he formerly represented in RS.

From the lone Uttarakhand seat, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has named Pradeep Tamta, former Lok Sabha MP from Almora. Tankha is a renowned lawyer, currently arguing against the Madhya Pradesh Government in the Vyapam recruitment scandal. He is also a confidante of Digvijay Singh, Congress general secretary and former MP Chief Minister.

Chhaya Verma, Congress Raipur district president, is a dark horse who will replace stalwart Mohsina Kidwai, the outgoing member from Chhattisgarh. The nominations reflect Sonia’s conscious urge to field legal luminaries in RS where the BJP recently sent Subramanian Swamy to nag her and her family. Of the eight candidates named today, Chidambaram, Sibal and Tankha are top lawyers who will counter the BJP’s strategy in the House.

Though Sibal has been in the Rajya Sabha from 1998 to 2004, Chidambaram is a first timer to this House having been a seven-term Lok Sabha MP.

With the latest nomination, Ambika Soni will enter her fifth term in Rajya Sabha. She will equal the record earlier held by Pranab Mukherjee, former Congress president Sitaram Kesri and party leaders Hans Raj Bhardwaj and Saroj Kharpade. The 73 year old is presently party general secretary for J&K, Himachal and Uttarakhand and in charge of Congress campaign committee in poll-bound Punjab.

Soni’s re-nomination is significant considering the Congress has seldom given five terms to leaders. When former Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha and incumbent minister Najma Heptullah had quit the Congress, the denial of a fifth RS term to her by Sonia was cited as one of the reasons.

With upcoming elections, the Congress will marginally lose its bite in the RS but will still retain a majority vis-à-vis the ruling BJP. While 14 Congress members retired recently, the party is hopeful of the return of just eight it named today. One more seat which it hopes to win is from Karnataka with the help of JDS. Former Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is a likely candidate from there.

Out of 64 Congress MPs in Rajya sabha, 14 retired recently. The party today nominated eight and is hopeful of getting one more seat from Karnataka. That will bring its tally in the Upper House to 59 as the BJP makes slow but steady gains.

The outgoing Congress Rajya Sabha MPs are Mohsina Kidwai, Ganhi loyalist Satish Sharma, EMS Natchiappan, Hanumantha Rao, JD Seelam, Vijaylakshmi Sadho and Ash Tak.