Muristek
New Delhi, May 26
The Congress' Udaipur declaration promise of promoting youth in key roles will be put to test in the upcoming Rajya Sabha election cycle with 55 seats set to fall vacant over the next two months and the party hoping to win at least 11.
The race for nominations is tight as the terms of seven leaders P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, Ambika Soni, Vivek Tankha, Pradeep Tamta and Chhaya Verma will expire soon. They will all be eyeing a return to the upper house. While Kapil Sibal, whose term ends in July, has secured a re-election with SP backing, Chidamram and Jairam Ramesh are hoping to come back from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, respectively.
It remains to be seen if Ambika Soni, RS MP from Punjab, will hang her boots having done five terms. Also waiting for berths are veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, whose terms ended recently.
AICC general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, Ajay Maken and Mukul Wasnik are among contenders. The party has 29 MPs in the upper house. It is expecting two to three seats from Rajasthan, two from Chhattisgarh, one each from Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana, MP and Karnataka. From Haryana, ex-CM Bhupinder Hooda is learnt to be backing Anand Sharma. Other claimants could be Surjewala, Kumari Selja and Kuldeep Bishnoi.