Lucknow: Kapil Sibal on Wednesday filed his nomination for Rajya Sabha seat with the backing from the Samajwadi Party in the presence of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. Sibal announced that he had left the Congress party already and is contesting as an independent candidate with the support from Akhilesh's SP.
"I had tendered my resignation from the Congress party on 16th May," Sibal said after filing the nomination. "I filed the nomination (for Rajya Sabha elections) as an independent candidate. I am thankful to the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh (Yadav) that he supported me. I also wish to convey my gratitude to Azam Khan for the support that he has given me, not just now but over several years," Sibal added.
"Am no longer a senior Congress leader," he said. "We are all constrained by the fact that we are members of parties and have to abide by the discipline of that party but it is important to have an independent voice," the former Union minister added.
"We want to make a coalition and oppose the Modi government. We want to create an atmosphere in which we can oppose the BJP. I will personally work towards that," he said. The senior advocate reiterated that there should be an atmosphere where the shortcomings of the Modi government can reach people.
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Akhilesh Yadav said that Kapil Sibal will get elected to the Rajya Sabha with SP's support. "Kapil Sibal is a senior lawyer. He has presented his opinions well in the Parliament. We hope he will present the opinions of both SP as well as himself," he said.
The former Congress leader whose Rajya Sabha tenure is expiring in July was elected to the upper house of the Parliament from UP in 2016. Sibal was part of the G-23 group of Congress that demanded organisational reforms in the grand old party. Sibal had been vocal in his criticism of the Congress leadership. He had called for a non-Gandhi as the new party chief.
He was not part of either of Political Affairs Group, Task Force -2024 or Central Planning Group for 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' constituted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday. Sibal's resignation comes close on the heels of Sunil Jakhar and Hardik Patel resigning from the Congress, which recently held a 'Chintan Shivir' in Udaipur.
Nominations for 11 Rajya Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh are underway. Speculations were rife that the SP could field Sibal as a Rajya Sabha candidate as he was the lawyer who secured senior SP leader Azam Khan's bail. The SP leader had been in Sitapur jail for over 27 months in various cases lodged against him in Rampur.
The SP has a strength of 111 and the BJP 255 in the 403-member assembly. SP will get to send three members to the Upper House of Parliament and the BJP will be able to secure the remaining eight seats.
