Former vice-chancellor of Himachal Pradesh Prof Sikander Kumar on Thursday elected unopposed as the Member of Parliament for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state. Kumar was elected unopposed as Congress had not fielded any candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat which fell vacant as the term of former Union minister Anand Sharma is going to expire on 2 April. Kumar was accompanied by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, Urban Development minister Suresh Bhardwaj, CM’s political advisor Trilok Jamwal when the Secretary, HP Vidhan Sabha Yashpal Sharma handed over the winning certificate to him. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot(`/96277396/single-article-ad-new`, [300, 250], `div-gpt-ad-1616332879619-0`).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.enableServices(); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(`div-gpt-ad-1616332879619-0`); }); The election for the Rajya Sabha seat was scheduled for 31 March but as Congress hasn’t fielded any candidate, he was declared the winner on the date of withdrawal of nominations. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur congratulated Sikander Kumar for getting elected to Rajya Sabha and said he had contributed a lot to the BJP. Kumar thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Amit Shah, national BJP chief J P Nadda and state BJP chief Suresh Kashyap for the election to the upper house of Parliament. “I will try to live up to the expectation of the workers and will leave no stone unturned to accelerate the pace of development of Himachal Pradesh. I will always be ready for public service and will make every effort to bring schemes from the Centre government to the state at the earliest. It will be my goal to strengthen the economy of Himachal and increase employment,” he added. Kumar belonged to the Nadaun area of Hamirpur district of Himachal and now all three Rajya Sabha MPs including J P Nadda and Indu Goswami from the state are from BJP. While the Congress has only one Lok Sabha MP i.e. Pratibha Singh, the wife of former CM Virbhadra Singh representing the party in parliament while other three MPs Anurag Thakur, Kishan Kapoor and Suresh Kashayap are from BJP.

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