Ranchi, March 14: JMM leader Sarfaraz Ahmad and BJP’s Pradeep Verma were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand on Thursday.
Returning officer Syed Javed Haider handed them the certificates of election after declaring them winners.
Since only two candidates were in the fray for the two Rajya Sabha seats in Jharkhand, they were declared winner unopposed.
Mumbai industrialist Harihar Mahapatra had bought nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha elections, but he could not prepare the MLAs as his proposer. For this reason he had distanced himself from the elections. There was one candidate each from the ruling party and the opposition.
With no third candidate both candidates sealed berth for Rajya Sabha without need of election (scheduled on March 21).
After receiving the certificate, Verma thanked the BJP leadership for entrusting him with the responsibility.
“The party has given big responsibility to a small-time worker like me. I thank our senior leaders for this. I would be trying to become the voice of Jharkhand in the Upper House of Parliament,” said Verma, who is the BJP’s general secretary in the state.
Ahmad, who resigned as an MLA in January, said he would be raising the issues concerning Jharkhand in Rajya Sabha.
Ahmad, who holds a PhD, has a long history in politics, having been first elected as an MLA in 1980 in undivided Bihar and serving as a Member of Parliament from 1984 to 1989 representing Giridih.
Later in the day Sarfaraz Ahmed met Jharkhand chief minister Champai Soren.
The seats will fall vacant as the tenure of the two incumbent MPs, BJP’s Samir Oraon and Congress’s Dhiraj Prasad Sahu, will end on May 3.
Jharkhand has six seats in the Rajya Sabha. Of the other four, two each are held by the state’s ruling JMM and opposition BJP.
Meanwhile JMM’s central general secretary and spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya claimed that Pradeep Verma is a native of Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh) and had amassed properties across different parts of Jharkhand, several of which have not been disclosed in the affidavit.
