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Deve Gowda, 87, back in Rajya Sabha for the first time since 1996
While the BJP chose to send two grassroot workers to the Rajya Sabha, the Congress chose to send its senior leader Mallikarjuna Kharge.
Former Prime Minister Deve Gowda, former leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge as well as two BJP candidates - Eranna Kadadi and Ashok Gasti - were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
Four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka fell vacant this month after Rajeev Gowda and BK Hari Prasad of the Congress, Prabhakar Kore of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and D Kupendra Reddy of the JD(S) completed their term.
While the BJP chose to send two grassroot workers to the Rajya Sabha, the Congress chose to send its senior leader Kharge, who had lost polls for the first time in 12 electoral outings from the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency to his BJP opponent Umesh Jadhav.
The JD(S) leader and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda was also declared elected despite his party having 10 votes short for sending a member to the Upper House as the Congress chose to extend support to him while the BJP decided not to field a candidate against the veteran leader.
Speaking to reporters after being elected, Mallikarjuna Kharge thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi for reposing faith in him and said he would do his utmost to effectively highlight issues facing the state and the country in parliament.
Responding to taunts by some BJP leaders that he has been forced to enter Parliament through backdoor, the 77-year-old Kharge retorted: “I have won 9 assembly polls on the trot as well as two consecutive Lok Sabha polls. Let them first get as much political experience as I have done and then they can comment.”
Former PM Gowda had lost the Lok Sabha polls from Tumkur after he vacated his traditional Hassan seat in favour of his grandson Prajwal Revanna, who is the party’s sole representative in the Lok Sabha. This is 87-year-old Gowda’s second stint in the Rajya Sabha, the first being when he was the PM in 1996.
