RS biennial polls: 11 aspirants likely to be elected unopposed

BJP leader Vijay Goel and two other party candidates from Rajasthan, six from Tamil Nadu and two from Jharkhand are likely to be elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha as Congress leaders Digvijay Singh, Kumari Selja and Madhusudan Mistry were among those who entered the fray today for the February 7 biennial polls.
As the deadline for filing of papers for 55 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant in April drew to a close, IPL chairman Ranjib Biswas and master sculptor Rahgunath Mohapatra were among the prominent candidates who filed their nominations from Odisha.
Selja, a known detractor of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and a surprise nominee of the Congress party, filed her papers from Haryana after quitting the Union Cabinet last night.

Putting an end to his ten-year self-imposed "exile" from electoral politics, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh filed his nomination for an RS berth from Madhya Pradesh.
After submitting his documents, 67-year-old Digvijay told reporters that he agreed for the RS nomination as he is an organisation man and wants to devote maximum time to it.
Goel, Ram Narain Dudi and Narain Pachariya, all BJP nominees, entered the fray for three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan, the state election office said.

No other candidates have filed their nominations from the state and all the three are set to be elected unopposed after the last date of withdrawal of papers on January 31.

The BJP posted an emphatic win in the recent assembly polls in the desert state bagging 163 seats in the 200-member House.
Four AIADMK nominees, L Sasikala Pushpa, Vijila Sathyanand, A K Selvaraj and S Muthukaruppa, CPI(M)'s T K Rangarajan and DMK's Tiruchi N Siva are likely to be elected uncontested as theirs are the only serious nominations for the six vacancies.
For Siva it will be the third term while for Rangarajan it will be the second.