Cong names Subbirami Reddy, Nandi Yellaiah for RS
Congress has renominated Union Ministers T Subbirami Reddy and Dalit leader Nandi Yellaiah for the March 26 elections to the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh, report Saroj Nagi and Tanmay Chatterjee.
The Congress has renominated Union Ministers T Subbirami Reddy and Dalit leader Nandi Yellaiah for the March 26 elections to the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh. The two figure in the list of 11 names formally announced by the party on Thursday.
The list also includes the names of Union Ministers Murli Deora and Prithviraj Chavan from Maharashtra and AICC treasurer Motilal Vora from Chhattisgarh.
On Wednesday, Mukut Mithi quit as Lt Governor of Puducherry to contest the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Arunachal Pradesh.
Of the two seats in Tamil Nadu, the party has named Union Minister GK Vasan for one. Congress is yet to decide on whether to field AICC spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan or PCC chief Krishnaswamy for the second. In Haryana, Dr Ram Prakash will get a second stint in the Upper House while the decision on the second seat is yet to be taken.
In Manipur, the party has once again given the ticket to Rishang Keishing, one of its oldest serving parliamentarians. Bhubaneswar Kalita will be fielded in Assam and R.C. Khuntia in Orissa. The Congress is yet to name its candidates for three more seats in Andhra Pradesh, one in Haryana and one each in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
Ripples in Bengal Left Front
In Left Front-ruled West Bengal, history was created on Thursday with the Forward Bloc agreeing to tell one of its sitting Rajya Sabha members to resign to make way for a CPI nominee.
Bengal will send five new MPs to the Rajya Sabha. Three of the seats will be retained by the CPI(M), one will go to the Forward Bloc while the fifth will go to a candidate proposed by the CPI.
Barun Mukherjee, who has not even completed two years of his term, was told to sacrifice his seat to ensure a safe victory for the party’s all India general secretary Debabrata Biswas. “I have served the Bloc for 50 years. I have to accept what my party says,” Mukherjee told Hindustan Times.