Sonia Gandhi ceased to be member of the House with effect from 20 Feb 2024 : Lok Sabha Website.

Chandigarh — It has been over one month since on 20 Feb 2024, Sonia Gandhi, MP from the Rae Bareli in current 17th Lok Sabha got declared elected unopposed for Rajya Sabha from the State of Rajasthan. as Congress party candidate.

Meanwhile, even after being declared elected to Rajya Sabha, the official website of Lok Sabha, till a few days ago, continued to show Sonia Gandhi as sitting MP from Rae Bareli Parliamentary Constituency (PC) in the State of Uttar Pradesh.

Amidst all this, Hemant Kumar, an Advocate at Punjab and Haryana High Court on March 7 filed an online RTI plea with Lok Sabha Secretariat seeking information about the declaration and notification issued by it pertaining to Sonia Gandhi ceasing to a member of 17th Lok Sabha consequent upon her election to Rajya Sabha with effect from 20 Feb 2024.

Although the Lok Sabha Secretariat is yet to supply the copy of aforementioned declaration and notification under RTI, however when the Advocate today checked the Official Website of Lok Sabha, he noticed that the profile of Sonia Gandhi has been changed from current/sitting MP to former MP alongwith mentioning that she ceased to be a member of the Lok Sabha consequent upon her election to the Rajya Sabha.

Be that as it may, quoting Section 69(1) of Representation of the People Act, 1951, Hemant says it clearly provides that if a person who is already a member of the House of the People (Lok Sabha) and has taken his seat in such House is chosen a member of the Council of States (Rajya Sabha), his seat in the House of the People shall on the date of which he is so chosen, become vacant. Hence, the very date on which Sonia Gandhi was chosen as Rajya Sabha MP from the State of Rajasthan i.e. 20 Feb 2024, she ceased to be a Member of the current 17th Lok Sabha.

The Advocate also cited a couple of precedents in this regard. In January, 2014, the then two Cabinet Ministers in then Dr. Manmohan Singh led UPA-2 dispensation viz. Sharad Pawar of NCP (then Lok Sabha MP from Madha, Maharashtra) and Kumari Selja (then Lok Sabha MP from Ambala, Haryana) of Cong were declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from the States of Maharashtra and Haryana respectively on 31 Jan 2014. Consequently, they both ceased to be members of 15th Lok Sabha with effect from 31 Jan 2014 itself although their tenure as member of Rajya Sabha was to commence with effect from 3 April 2014 (in case of Pawar) and 10 April 2014 (in case of Selja).

Hemant said that Sonia’s tenure as Rajya Sabha MP from State of Rajasthan would commence only with effect from 4 April 2024 after the requisite statutory declaration in the form of Notification pertaining to his election to Rajya Sabha from the State of Rajasthan along with another Notification as mandated under Section 71 of Representation of the People Act, 1951 would be published in the Gazette of India by the Legislative Department under Union Ministry of Law and Justice on 4 April 2024 itself. Hence for the period between 20 Feb 2024 to 3 April 2024, Sonia Gandhi is not a member of either House of Parliament.