Jaswant, Heptullah elected unopposed to RS

Former Union minister Jaswant Singh and former deputy chairperson of Rajya Sabha Najma Heptullah were among the five candidates elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha on Monday from Rajasthan.

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The other three were: Congress' Santosh Bagrodiya, a Kolkata-based businessman; BJP state president L K Chaturvedi; and Gyan Prakash Pilania, a former director general of police.

As the deadline to withdraw nominations ended at 1500 IST, Returning Officer H R Punia anounced that there were five candidates for an equal number of seats and hence voting was not necessary.

The Congress has lost two seats to the BJP and it now has six of the ten seats from the state in the Upper House of Parliament.

All the seven candidates, who filed their nominations for Rajya Sabha elections from Andhra Pradesh, have also been declared elected unopposed.

Returning Officer Tuljanand Singh announced the election of five Congress candidates-- AICC economic cell in-charge Jairam Ramesh; AICC secretary V Hanumantha Rao; industrialist and newspaper baron Girish Sanghi; retired bureaucrat Jesu Dasu Seelam; and former Lok Sabha member Rashid Alvi  --as well as Communist Party of India (Marxist) nominee Penumalli Madhu and Telugu Desam Party candidate C Ramachandraiah, after the deadline for withdrawal of candidatures ended.