Bengaluru: AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge and senior Congress leaders Pawan Khera and Mansoor Ali Khan were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka on Thursday. BJP candidate Prof. M. Nagaraj was also elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from the state.
The results were declared on Thursday by K. Vishalakshi, Secretary of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and Returning Officer for the election.
Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, taking to X, stated: “Heartiest congratulations to Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Shri Pawan Khera, and Shri Mansoor Ali Khan on being elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka. I am confident that they will champion Karnataka’s interests in Parliament, effectively voicing the aspirations of our people and working towards the state’s continued progress and development.”
Mallikarjun Kharge is the current AICC President. He was the Leader of the Opposition of the Rajya Sabha from February 16, 2021, to October 1, 2022. He has served as Minister of Railways and Minister of Labour and Employment in the Government of India.
He was a Member of Parliament for Kalaburagi, Karnataka, from 2009 to 2019. A senior Karnataka politician, he was also the Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee during the 2008 Karnataka State Assembly elections.
Kharge has won elections a record 10 times in a row, including nine consecutive Assembly elections (1972, 1978, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2008, 2009), before losing in 2019. He was the leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha during 2014–2019.
Pawan Khera is the national spokesperson for the Indian National Congress. He is a political strategist and commentator. Previously, he worked as Political Secretary and Officer-on-Special Duty to former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
He was appointed as a member of the Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE), formed by the Congress on February 2, 2025, to monitor the Election Commission’s conduct of free and fair elections.
Mansoor Ali Khan is a prominent Congress politician, educationist, and the son of veteran leader K. Rahman Khan. He has served as the General Secretary of the KPCC and as the AICC Secretary. He successfully managed Congress campaigns in the Kerala assembly polls and was the AICC in-charge for the 2023 Telangana assembly elections. He also contested as the official INC candidate for the Bengaluru Central constituency.
Prof. M. Nagaraj, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is a staunch member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Originally from Hubballi-Dharwad, Nagaraj has a strong academic background and has served as a professor for several years. He has been associated with student politics since his college days and was actively involved with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and RSS before entering active politics through the BJP.
Within the party organisation, he has held key responsibilities, including serving as a state vice president of the Karnataka BJP unit. He is also known for his administrative experience, having previously served on the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC).
Nagaraj has also worked on organisational initiatives aligned with the BJP’s broader ideological framework, inspired by the Jan Sangh founder, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. He has been associated with a programme to construct party offices in every district, part of a vision project under Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and has served as the Karnataka coordinator for the building construction committee.
(IANS)
