By Our Special Correspondent
The Congress on Sunday announced its 10 candidates for the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections, including former Union ministers P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and Ajay Maken, as well as party chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala. According to party sources, Chidambaram is from Tamil Nadu, Ramesh from Karnataka, Maken from Haryana and Surjewala from Rajasthan.
The list includes two leaders - former Union Minister Mukul Wasik (Rajasthan) and Vivek Tankha (Madhya Pradesh) - who are among a group of 23 (G-23) leaders who wrote a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi in 2020 seeking to be a large-scale institution. Repair. However, G-23 leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, who were speculated to be on the list, did not get a place.
In G-23, senior leader M Veerappa Moily was away from the group, Jitin Prasada joined the BJP, Kapil Sibal quit the Congress and Wasnik did not attend its meetings in recent times.
The Congress has also fielded Pramod Tiwari from Rajasthan, former Union Minister Rajiv Shukla, Ranjit Ranjan from Chhattisgarh and Imran Pratap Ghadi from Maharashtra. Five of the 10 leaders are former Union ministers Chidambaram, Ramesh, Maken, Shukla and Wasnik. The three are from Uttar Pradesh - Shukla, Tiwari and Imran Pratapgarhi, also head of the Congress minority wing.
Of the 55 vacancies arising in the Rajya Sabha in the next two months, seven Congress members — Chidambaram (Maharashtra), Ramesh (Karnataka), Ambika Soni (Punjab), Tankha (Madhya Pradesh), Pradeep Tamta (Uttarakhand), Kapil Sibal (Uttar Pradesh) and Chhaya Verma (Chhattisgarh) — will be completing their terms.
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