Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi will file his nomination for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh on Thursday, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said on Wednesday. “Singhvi is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court and a senior Congress leader and we welcome him,” he said.
Sukhu chaired the Congress Legislative Party meeting on Wednesday evening ahead of the nomination filing by Singhvi for the Rajya Sabha elections. Congress’ in-charge of Himachal Pradesh Rajiv Shukla, co-in-charge Tejinder Bittu, former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, state Congress chief Pratibha Singh and all three independent MLAs also attended the meeting.
The lone Rajya Sabha seat falling vacant on expiry of BJP president J P Nadda’s six-year term on April 2 will go to Singhvi as the Congress has a comfortable majority in the state assembly with 40 out of the 68 seats. The last date for filing of nominations for the Rajya Sabha polls is February 15, the scrutiny of nomination papers will be done on February 16 and the last date for withdrawal is February 20.
All three Rajya Sabha seats from the state are presently held by the BJP. Indu Goswami and Sikender Kumar are the other two members from the state. Nadda has this time been given a Rajya Sabha ticket by the BJP from Gujarat.