Barnala, October 16 (). Industrialist Rajinder Gupta has been elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab. His unopposed victory was officially announced on Thursday after the last date for withdrawal of nominations ended.
The returning officer handed over the election certificate to Rajinder Gupta in the presence of Punjab Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan. This brief ceremony was held in the Punjab Assembly premises.
Rajinder Gupta, an industrialist and philanthropist, had filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha by-election as an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate. This by-election was held due to vacancy of one seat from Punjab.
This seat became vacant after Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjeev Arora won the assembly elections. Sanjeev Arora was elected Rajya Sabha member till 9 April 2028, but he resigned from Rajya Sabha and became a minister in Punjab government after winning the assembly by-election.
Elections for the sole Rajya Sabha seat of Punjab were to be held on October 24.
However, in the Rajya Sabha elections, nominations filed against Rajinder Gupta by three independent candidates including Prabhakar Dada of Sangli, Maharashtra and Kranti Sayana of Hyderabad were cancelled. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal did not field their candidates. The reason for this was the lack of numbers in the Punjab Assembly.
Aam Aadmi Party has about 80 percent MLAs in the 117-member Punjab Assembly. Therefore, if any opposition party had fielded its candidate against Rajinder Gupta, victory was not certain. In this situation, since there was no opposing candidate, Rajinder Gupta was elected unopposed.
On this victory, senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia wrote in the ‘
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DCH/