New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former prime minister Manmohan Singh will no longer be part of the Rajya Sabha for the first time in nearly 30 years and will not be part of the upcoming Budget session to be held on June 17.
The Congress party was unable to get Singh (86) re-elected from Assam due to its poor strength in the state Assembly. They were able to win only 25 seats out of the 43 first-preference votes needed. As a result, Singh retired from the Rajya Sabha on Friday, June 14.
Right now, there are a total of nine seats lying vacant- four in Odisha, one in Tamil Nadu, two in Bihar and two in Gujarat. The Congress does not have the required number of seats to get Rajya Sabha berths in any of these states except for Gujarat, where they are hoping to get at least one seat.
Apart from this, the only other way to get Singh to the Rajya Sabha is to make another leader resign and get him elected to the Upper House from the seat. This step, however, has not been considered in the party, according to sources.
Singh first entered the Upper House of the Parliament back in 1991, during then PM P V Narasimha Rao’s government, as the Union Finance Minister. He was elected from Assam and represented the state for five consecutive terms.
