The Rajya Sabha elections scheduled for next month will include 11 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh.
Digital Desk: Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said that he had resigned from the party minutes after filling his nomination papers for Rajya Sabha as an independent candidate supported by the Samajwadi Party.
"I resigned from the Congress party on May 16," Kapil Sibal told reporters, slipping in the information that had stayed concealed since the Congress "Chintan Shivir" or strategy meeting a week ago.
While confronting questions, he quipped, "I am no longer a serious Congress leader."
This is the seventh high-profile departure from Congress in the last five months.
Notably, Sibal quit a day after a Congress brainstorming session to establish a strategy for the party's resurgence following a string of humiliating election losses.
He was no longer a member of the Congress' advisory groups and had been left out of the big meeting.
"As an independent candidate, I have filed my papers. Being an independent voice in parliament is critical. People will trust that if an independent voice speaks up, it is not affiliated with any political party", Sibal explained.
Notably, Sibal, a top lawyer who has represented politicians from all sides of the political spectrum and was once one of the party's top leaders, was the driving force behind the "G-23," or group of 23 dissenters, who demanded a complete overhaul of the party's leadership and organization in a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi two years ago.
He has been vocal and increasingly sharp in his criticism of the Gandhis' leadership, especially Rahul Gandhi.
His term in the Rajya Sabha ends in July. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh in 2016 as a Congress candidate sponsored by the state's ruling Samajwadi Party.
With only two MLAs in the UP parliament, Congress cannot elect anyone to the Rajya Sabha from the state.
Sibal filed his candidacy papers in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party.
The Samajwadi Party's decision to back Sibal is considered payback for his work as the lawyer for party MP Azam Khan.
Mr. Sibal represented Azam Khan in the Supreme Court.
After two years in prison, the Supreme Court granted Azam Khan interim bail.
Eleven Uttar Pradesh seats will be up for election in the Rajya Sabha next month.
As mentioned, Akhilesh Yadav said the party had chosen Kapil Sibal as their first candidate for the Rajya Sabha election, and there will be two more nominees released soon.
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