Jaipur, May 31 (Agency)
Rajya Sabha member from Haryana Subhash Chandra on Tuesday filed his nomination as an independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections to be held in Rajasthan. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced its support for Chandra in the election. At the same time, Chandra has expressed confidence of his victory. Talking to reporters after filing his nomination, Chandra said, “Last time I was a BJP-backed independent member of Rajya Sabha from Haryana. I requested the BJP leadership to make me a Rajya Sabha member this time from my native Rajasthan. He said that he is not new to Rajasthan. He has a house in Fatehpur Shekhawati, where he keeps coming and going. Chandra said, “30 BJP MLAs have supported me, for this I am grateful to them. My sincere prayer to the MLAs of all other parties is that I belong to you, belong to your state, so support me.” He assured that as a member of Rajya Sabha, he would vigorously raise the interest of the people of Rajasthan. On Congress’ allegations of horse-trading of MLAs, Chandra said, “I don’t know anything about ‘horse trading’. I know that there is Rajya Sabha election. 200 MLAs of the state will elect their representatives and send them to the Rajya Sabha. I know that I will get more votes than the 41 votes required to win…. There is no talk of ‘horse trading’.”
It is noteworthy that Chandra is currently a Rajya Sabha member from Haryana and his term is going to end on August 1, 2022. Elections to four Rajya Sabha seats in Rajasthan will be held on June 10, for which the Congress has fielded Mukul Wasnik, Pramod Tiwari and Randeep Singh Surjewala, while the BJP has fielded former minister Ghanshyam Tiwari. BJP state president Satish Poonia said, “The BJP had a surplus of 30 votes in terms of preference for the Rajya Sabha elections. Last time also we had fielded another candidate. This time also the situation was almost like this.”
