Only one nomination filed for Arunachal Rajya Sabha poll

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ITANAGAR: Only one nomination was filed in Arunachal Pradesh till Tuesday, the last date of filing papers for the biennial election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat, a senior official at the state election office here said.

BJP nominee Nabam Rebia is the lone candidate in the state to file nomination, Joint Chief Electoral Officer D J Bhattacharjee informed.

Rebia filed his papers on Monday after the party's central election committee on Sunday nominated him as its candidate.

State Legislative Assembly Secretary K Habung, who has been appointed as the returning officer by the Election Commission, informed that if Rebia did not withdraw his nominations within the last date, he would be declared elected without any election.

Scrutiny of papers would be held on June 10 and June 12 is the last date for withdrawal of nominations, Bhattacharjee said adding, the election process should be completed by June 22.

Rebia, who represented the state in the Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms from 1996 to 2002 and 2002 to 2008 as a Congress candidate, had also served the state as Speaker and Cabinet Minister.

The Election Commission of India on June 2 had issued notification for holding elections to the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Arunachal Pradesh along with other states.

Mukut Mithi of the Congress is the incumbent Rajya Sabha MP from the northeast state whose tenure will end on June 23.

The 60-member Arunachal Pradesh assembly has 41 BJP MLAs followed by seven Janata Dal United (JDU) members, Congress and National Peoples Party (NPP) four each, Peoples Party of Arunachal one and three independents.

The JDU and the NPP are supporting the Pema Khandu-led BJP government.

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