By IANS,
Bangalore : Four candidates, including two from Karnataka’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and one from the opposition Congress were declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, a senior official said Thursday.
Basavaraj Patil Sedam and R.Ramakrishna of the BJP, K. Rehaman Khan of the Congress and independent nominee Rajeev Chandrashekar fill the four vacancies from the state after the six-year term of the incumbents ends this month-end.
“I have declared the four nominees elected after the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers ended today (Thursday). In the absence of other candidates, there will be no formal election,” state legislature’s returning officer P. Omprakash told IANS.
As Rajya Sabha deputy chairman, Khan gets elected for the fourth time from the state, while industrialist Chandrashekar gets his second term.
Sedam, a former lawmaker, and former bureaucrat Ramakrishna enter the Rajya Sabha for the first time. Sedam was also president of the party’s state unit over a decade ago.
“As their nomination papers were found in order after scrutiny for the biennial elections from the state to the Rajya Sabha, they have been elected unopposed,” Omprakash said.
The returning officer rejected the nomination of BJP rebel B.J. Puttaswamy Wednesday as his resignation from the post of the chief minister’s political secretary was not accepted on the last day (March 19) of filing nominations as it (post) came under the ‘office of profit’ clause.