Sonia Gandhi files Rajya Sabha nomination from Rajasthan

Five-time Lok Sabha member Sonia Gandhi has filed her nomination papers for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls from Rajasthan. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi accompanied the former Congress president to Jaipur, where she filed the papers.

It will be the 77-year-old leader's first term in the Upper House. The seat will fall vacant after former prime minister Manmohan Singh completes his six-year tenure in April.

A total of 56 members of Rajya Sabha from 15 states are retiring in April and the election to the seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.

The Congress is comfortably placed to win one of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan for which elections will be held.

She will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter Rajya Sabha after former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was a member of the Upper House from August 1964 to February 1967.

The party has not formally declared any candidate for the biennial Rajya Sabha elections.

Gandhi had announced in 2019 that it would be her last Lok Sabha election. Speculation is rife that her daughter Priyanka could contest from Rae Bareli constituency in her stead.

That Sonia Gandhi chose to contest from Rajasthan and not from a southern state like Telangana or Karnataka, where the party is also comfortably placed to win, is also a signal that the Congress' first family is not abandoning the Hindi-heartland.

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