Former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s 28-year-long tenure as a Rajya Sabha member ended on June 14. However, the veteran is again set to enter the upper house again as Congress is reportedly planning to nominate Singh from Rajasthan.Manmohan Singh couldn’t enter Rajya Sabha from Assam due to party’s poor strength in the state Assembly. In Assam, 43 first preference votes are required for anyone to secure the election. Congress has 25 MLAs and even with the support of 13 legislators of All India United Democratic Front, it was falling short of five votes.
Then there were speculations that Congress ally DMK might get Manmohan elected from Tamil Nadu where Stalin-led party is comfortably positioned to secure three Rajya Sabha seats. However, earlier today, DMK named candidates for all three seats, shunning Congress and assigning one seat to Vaiko of MDMK.Last month, Congress was not positioned to get Manmohan elected on its own, however, due to the sudden demise of BJP Rajasthan president Madan Lal Saini, a seat was left vacant. Since the Congress won last year’s Assembly election in the state and has more MLAs in Assembly than the saffron party, it’s confident to get Singh elected.
Manmohan Singh in his 28-year stint as a Rajya Sabha MP led the Congress party in the upper house for a decade – from 2004 to 2014 – and acted as the Leader of the Opposition for six years. Singh was last elected to the upper house in 2013.
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