Chandigarh, March 6 -- BJP's Sanjay Bhatia and Congress' Karamvir Singh Boudh filed their nomination papers in Chandigarh on Thursday for the two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana falling vacant on April 9. The vacancies arise as the terms of BJP members Kiran Choudhry and Ram Chander Jangra come to an end. With the 90-member Haryana assembly requiring 31 votes per candidate for a win, the ruling BJP (48 MLAs + 3 Independents) and the Congress (37 MLAs) were initially positioned to comfortably secure one seat each. However, the contest has become interesting after the nomination of an independent candidate and BJP leader Satish Nandal. Nandal had previously contested the 2019 assembly elections as a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party against former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Accompanied by chief minister Nayab Singh Saini and state party president Mohan Lal Badoli, Bhatia, 58, filed his papers following a meeting with the CM at his residence. A former Karnal MP and confidant of Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Bhatia's elevation is seen as a reward for his long-standing organisational loyalty. He had vacated his Lok Sabha seat in 2024 to facilitate Khattar's entry into Parliament after he stepped down as chief minister. In 2019, Bhatia won the LS seat by a record-breaking margin of over 6.56 lakh votes. "His vast experience and dedication to public service will be vital in furthering the state's interests in the Upper House," CM Saini posted on X, congratulating the candidate. Bhatia expressed his gratitude to the party leadership, saying he would strive to meet the expectations of the people. In a move to consolidate its Dalit outreach, the Congress named Karamvir Singh Boudh on the final day of filing nominations. Boudh, a retired government employee and coordinator of the party's national Scheduled Castes wing, was joined by leader of opposition and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala. The choice is strategically aimed at balancing caste equations within the state unit, where the leadership is currently split between the Jat (Hooda) and OBC (state president Rao Narender Singh) communities. Surjewala noted that Boudh's nomination proves the party's commitment to "ground-level workers from exploited sections". Boudh, who missed out on a Mullana ticket during the 2024 assembly polls, thanked Rahul Gandhi and the central leadership for "entrusting a common worker with a big responsibility". At that time the party gave the ticket to Pooja Chaudhary, wife of party's Ambala MP Varun Chaudhary, and she went on to win the seat....