Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Khera elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Karnataka

Four candidates, including All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge, were declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka on Thursday. The legislative voting process, which was scheduled to take place at the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru, was called off after only four nominees remained in the fray for the four vacant seats in the upper house of India's Parliament.

Alongside Kharge, the other newly elected Rajya Sabha members are educationist Mansoor Ali Khan, Congress media and publicity department chairperson Pawan Khera, and M Nagaraja. Mansoor Ali Khan is the son of former Union minister K Rahman Khan, while M Nagaraja is a former member of the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) and was the sole nominee fielded by the Bharatiya Party (BJP).

According to election officials, the scheduled June 18 election became uncontested following the scrutiny of the nomination papers. During the scrutiny process, an independent candidate's nomination was rejected, leaving only four valid candidates in the contest. Once the official deadline for the withdrawal of nominations ended, and with only four candidates remaining for the four available seats, the election process was completed without the need for a vote.

Members of the Karnataka legislative assembly were originally set to cast their votes at the Vidhana Soudha, but the entire polling process was called off due to the lack of opposing candidates.

The four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka had fallen vacant as the terms of the sitting members are set to conclude. The terms of BJP members Iranna Kadadi and Narayana Koragappa, along with those of Mallikarjun Kharge and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, are scheduled to end on June 25.