Hooda's show of strength in Delhi for RS ticket

 Even as Congress interim Chief Sonia Gandhi is set to take a call on the Rajya Sabha nominees of the Congress from Haryana, former Lok Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda has brought his 24 MLAs to the national capital to build pressure on the party leadership for the upper house berth.

Hooda junior, who is the son of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, brought 24 MLAs in Delhi on Wednesday afternoon as a show of strength for Rajya Sabha ticket.

According to party sources, the MLAs of the Congress are staying in Delhi. The Congress had won 31 seats in the 2019 assembly elections.

Party leaders had earlier indicated that former Union Minister and Haryana party in-charge Kumari Selja will be the party nominee from the state. While for the other seat, the name of Hooda and senior party leader Randeep Singh Surjewala is also being discussed.

The party leader said that Selja is close to party interim chief Sonia Gandhi and is also the party's Dalit face from the northern state while Surjewala is said to be the choice of former party chief Rahul Gandhi.

The elections for the 55 Rajya Sabha vacant seats in 17 states will take place on March 26. The Congress leaders had earlier indicated that the grand old party is all set to attempt to strike a balance between experience and youth to select candidates.

Seven seats will go to polls in Maharashtra, six in Tamil Nadu, five each in West Bengal and Bihar, four each in Odisha, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, three each in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Assam, two each in Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Jharkhand and one each in Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya. IANS