Four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates and a Congress aspirant were on Thursday elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.
With no candidate backing off as the time for withdrawal of nominations ended at 1500 hrs today, Union ministers Thawar Chand Gehlot and Dharmendra Pradhan, Ajay Pratap Singh and Kaialsh Soni (all BJP) and Rajmani Patel (Cong) were declared unopposed by election authorities.
The process for the Rajya Sabha elections was set in motion with the issuance of notification on March 5. Nominations papers were filed by all five candidates on March 12, the last date for filing nominations. They were found to be valid during scrutiny on the next day.
The election was necessitated as five seats in Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh would be rendered vacant after the tenure of Thawar Chand Gehlot, La Ganesan, Prakash Javadekar, Meghraj Jain (all BJP) and Satyavrat Chaturvedi (Congress) ends on April 2.