Ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, a meeting of the Jharkhand Congress was held in the national capital on Thursday to decide whether a local leader can be sent to the Rajya Sabha.
Jharkhand Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey, Jharkhand Congress President Rajesh Thakur and more than half a dozen party MLAs from the state were present in the meeting at Congress headquarters where discussions were also held on strengthening the organization.
Speaking to ANI, Thakur said that Jharkhand Congress leaders want a local leader to be sent to the Rajya Sabha by the party.
However, Thakur said that Rajya Sabha elections are very complicated and sometimes people from outside the state also have to be sent to Rajya Sabha. "Therefore, the final decision has to be taken by the party's high command," he said.
Notably, two Rajya Sabha seats will fall vacant from Jharkhand after the retirement of BJP leaders Mahesh Poddar and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha alliance is likely to bag one seat.
"Congress should get a Rajya Sabha seat which belongs to Congress-JMM. Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has given a positive reply on this," Thakur said.
"Congress has a long list of leaders who are eligible to contest the Rajya Sabha polls. In such a situation, the suspense remains on who will be contesting the polls. The party's high command will take the final decision," he said.
Elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant due to the retirement of members from 15 states will be held on June 10. The members are retiring on different dates between June 21 and August 1. Eleven seats are due to fall vacant from Uttar Pradesh this year, while six members each will retire from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Five Rajya Sabha MPs will retire from Bihar while four each will depart from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Apart from these, seats will fall vacant when three members each from Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, two each from Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Punjab, Haryana and Jharkhand, and one from Uttarakhand retire.
( With inputs from ANI )
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