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PoliticsRajya Sabha

Hardeep Puri elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh

The Union petroleum minister wins L Murugan's old seat without a vote after the papers of a Congress-backed independent were rejected. Congress MLAs say they will go to the High Court.

From the editorial desk · BhopalPublished
Hardeep Singh Puri (file photo)
Hardeep Singh Puri (file photo)Prime Minister's Office / Wikimedia

Key points

  1. Hardeep Singh Puri was declared elected unopposed on Thursday after withdrawals closed at 3 pm.
  2. Congress-backed Rajkumar Lohani's nomination was rejected for a missing Form 26 affidavit.
  3. Puri will hold the seat until April 2, 2030, the rest of L Murugan's term.

Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri was declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh on Thursday, after the deadline for withdrawing nominations passed at 3 pm with no rival left in the race.

The seat fell vacant when L Murugan quit the Union ministry and the Upper House on October 14 to return to Tamil Nadu politics. Puri will serve out the rest of that term, until April 2, 2030. Polling had been set for November 12 and will no longer be needed.

State BJP president Hemant Khandelwal collected Puri’s certificate of election from Returning Officer Umesh Kumar Sharma at the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly in Bhopal, with Deputy Chief Minister Jagdish Devda and BJP MLAs Rameshwar Sharma and Bhagwandas Sabnani present.

How the contest ended

The Congress had backed an independent, Rajkumar Lohani, a Bhopal shopkeeper, against Puri. At scrutiny on Tuesday his papers were rejected because the mandatory Form 26 affidavit was missing at the 3 pm deadline on November 2. Lohani was reported to have said he had submitted the papers in hard and soft copy but could not file the physical affidavit in time, and that the returning officer refused him more time. A second independent, Kante Sayanna, was turned down for not having enough MLAs as proposers.

Lohani, Sayanna and Congress MLAs Hemant Katare and Atif Aqeel had objected to Puri’s own affidavit, pointing to what they called discrepancies over overseas assets, his wife’s details, asset values and notarisation. The returning officer dismissed the objections, ruling that Puri’s papers had no defect. Katare and Aqeel were reported to have said they would challenge the decision in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The BJP named Puri for the seat on October 28, and he filed his papers on October 31 with Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and Deputy Chief Ministers Rajendra Shukla and Jagdish Devda at his side.

The documents