Sonia joins ‘outsiders’ taking Rajasthan route to Rajya Sabha in Congress; list carries Rahul, Kharge imprint

When Sonia Gandhi will walk into the Rajya Sabha as a member for the first time, she will encounter many familiar faces, among them at least nine MPs who were her Congress colleagues – some of them even considered part of Rahul Gandhi’s team – but switched to other parties over the last five years.

The Congress’s current strength in the 245-member Rajya Sabha is 30, which will remain the same after the February 27 elections, with the party hoping to win 10 seats amid an equal number of its retiring MPs.

Of the nine MPs – nearly one third of the Congress’s strength – who had quit the Congress in recent times, Sonia will find some alongside her on the Opposition benches and others sitting on the Treasury benches across the aisle.

Among them would be Ashok Chavan, Jyotiraditya Scindia, R P N Singh, Milind Deora and Bhubaneswar Kalita on the BJP-led NDA’s side; and Priyanka Chaturvedi, Mausam Noor, Sushmita Dev and Kapil Sibal on the Opposition benches.

The Congress’s strength in the Upper House would remain the lowest in its history.

The choice of the grand old party’s 10 candidates for the Rajya Sabha show an interesting mix of accommodation of seniors and a visible imprint of the Gandhi family as also Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. There was also an element of pushback from the state leadership as well as honouring of their wishes and caste balancing.

The highlight, of course, was Sonia’s decision to bid farewell to electoral politics just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and take the Rajya Sabha route to remain in Parliament. Sonia, who is not in the pink of health, has been avoiding public engagements for some time except attending Parliament and the INDIA bloc’s meetings.

Her decision to get elected to the Rajya Sabha