Goyal, Chidambaram elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram were today elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra.

The deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended this afternoon. As none of the six candidates for as many RS seats pulled out, all were elected to the Upper House, a senior Vidhan Bhawan official said.

P Chidambaram and Piyush Goyal

Others elected are former union minister Praful Patel (NCP), BJP's Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Vikas Mahatme and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut, who had filed their papers for the biennial elections.

Chidambaram did not contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls while his son Karti had unsuccessfully fought from his native Sivaganga constituency in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, 10 candidates, including former Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane, who had filed nomination papers for 10 seats of the Legislative Council, were also elected unopposed as two others withdrew from the fray.
Those who pulled out today were Prasad Lad and Manoj Kotak, both from BJP. The Legislative Council election was scheduled for June 10.

Others elected include Sujit Singh Thakur, Pravin Darekar, R N Singh (all from BJP) and its allies Sadabhau Khot and Vinayak Mete, who were also fielded by the party.

Leader of Opposition in the Council, Dhananjay Munde and Council Chairman Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar, both from NCP and Shiv Sena ministers Diwakar Raote and Subhash Desai also won.