Even as senior leaders and Union Ministers Suresh Prabhu and Piyush Goyal, Congress seniors like P Chidambaram and Ambika Soni, senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani, RJD Chief Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti and JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav and several others were elected unopposed to Rajyasabha, in six states – Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana election will be held on June 11.

In UP none of the 12 candidates for 11 seats were ready to with draw their nomination. What makes the election interesting there is the presenceof the independent candidate, founder of an NGO Preeti Mahapatra. As far as the senior player Kapil Sibal is concerned, his nomination was uncertain until the last as the Congress has 29 MLAs in assembly out of which seven may vote for other nominees, and that leaves Kapil Sibal in need of 12 MLAs who will support him from outside.

In Madhya Pradesh too, things look bleak for senior lawyer and Congress nominee Vivek Tankha, who will find it tough to compete with BJP’s Vinod Gothia who is contesting as independent, MJ Akbar and Anil Madhav Dave.

It doesn’t look like BJP wants Congress to have it the easy way. In fact it has nominated its own candidates and is supporting few independent nominations as well in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.