Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday filed her nomination papers for upcoming elections to the Rajya Sabha and is set to make her debut in the upper House of the Parliament.

It will be Sonia Gandhi's first term in the upper House after serving five terms as a Lok Sabha MP.

Sonia will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter the Rajya Sabha after her mother-in-law and former prime minister Indira Gandhi who was a member of the upper House from August 1964 to February 1967.

Sonia had already announced in 2019 that it would be her last Lok Sabha election. 77-year-old Italy-born Sonia’s son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, were among those present at the time of the nomination filing in the assembly building of Rajasthan state.

The lawmakers of the Rajya Sabha are elected by an electoral college in which members of state legislative assemblies exercise their franchise. The members of the Lok Sabha, the lower House of parliament, are elected directly by the people.

Congress is comfortably placed to win one of the three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan for which elections will be held. The seat will fall vacant after Sonia’s party colleague and former prime minister Manmohan Singh completes his six-year tenure in the Rajya Sabha in April.

First elected as a member of the Lok Sabha in 1999, Sonia earlier represented Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency and will not contest the next parliamentary elections due in a month.

A total of 56 members of Rajya Sabha from 15 Indian states are retiring in April on completion of their tenures and the election to the seats will be held on February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.

Sonia’s shift to the Rajya Sabha has sparked speculation in political circles about the possibility of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contesting from the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency.