The three candidates for election to Rajya Sabha from Haryana - BJP’s Ram Chander Jangra and Dushyant Kumar Gautam and Congress’ Deepender Singh Hooda - filed their nominations Friday and are likely to enter the Upper House of Parliament unopposed. The scrutiny of papers will take place on March 16 while the last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 18, the day when their election will also be announced. While Jangra and Gautam were accompanied by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Home Minister Anil Vij, state BJP chief Subhash Barala and some other party legislators, Deepender was accompanied by his father and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and majority of Haryana Congress legislators as they reached the Vidhan Sabha to submit their nomination papers. No legislator from the JJP, the BJP’s partner in the ruling alliance, was present as the party had organised a rally in Panipat to commemorate the birthday of its chief patron Ajay Singh Chautala. Earlier, in the afternoon, Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja, who too was a frontrunner for nomination to the Rajya Sabha, congratulated Deepender. “I congratulate Deepender Hooda ji on being nominated for Rajya Sabha,” she wrote on Twitter. Two Rajya Sabha vacancies arose in Haryana following the resignation of BJP’s Ram Kumar Kashyap, who was elected as MLA in Assembly polls from Indri last year, and the expiry of Selja’s term next month. BJP has fielded Jangra and Congress nominated Deepender for these two vacancies. Both will last a full term till April, 2026. A third vacancy, which necessitated a byelection, arose following the resignation of former Union minister and BJP leader Birender Singh in January this year. Gautam is set to enter the Upper House for the remainder of the term, which will last till August 2022. Deepender had been a three-time Lok Sabha member from Rohtak. In 2019, he narrowly lost to BJP’s Arvind Sharma as the saffron party won all 10 parliamentary seats from the state. Speaking to reporters after filing his nomination, Deepender thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi, party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for reposing faith in him. He also thanked Selja and all the legislators “who supported him”. When asked whether Selja was reportedly unhappy with his nomination, Deepender said that was not the case. “After my candidature was announced by the party, I met her at her residence (in Delhi) on Thursday night. I sought her blessings and she told me that her blessings are with me,” he said. When queried about senior Congress leaders Kiran Choudhary and Kuldeep Bishnoi, not being present while filing nomination, Deepender quipped, “I have blessings of all the 31 (Congress) MLAs.” Once Deepender is elected to the Rajya Sabha, it will be the fourth instance when the son of a sitting or a former chief minister has made it to to the Upper House of the Parliament. In the past, three chief ministers in Haryana had got their sons into the Rajya Sabha. The first such case dates back to 1986. In August, 1986 elections for two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana were held and then chief minister Bansi Lal’s son Surender Singh bagged one of the seats, the other going to Bhajan Lal. While Surender Singh remained Rajya Sabha member till 1992, Bhajan Lal contested Lok Sabha polls from Faridabad in 1989, won and resigned from Rajya Sabha. In 1987 when Devi Lal became chief minister for a second time, he got his elder son Om Prakash Chautala elected to Rajya Sabha the same year. Devi Lal’s younger son Ranjit Chautala too remained Rajya Sabha’s member from Haryana from 1990 to 1992. In June, 2004, then CM Om Prakash Chautala got his elder son Ajay Chautala elected to Rajya Sabha from Haryana. However, in November 2009, Ajay Chautala contested Vidhan Sabha polls, won and resigned from Rajya Sabha membership. In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the BJP has 40 MLAs while its alliance partner JJP has 10. The main opposition Congress has 31 members while six out of seven independent MLAs have extended support to the BJP-JJP coalition government. The INLD has one MLA while one member belongs to the Haryana Lokhit Party.
