All four candidates fielded by the Congress and the BJP for the Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka were elected unopposed Thursday.

The Congress nominees were AICC president and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge; AICC media and publicity department chairperson, Pawan Khera; and AICC secretary, Mansoor Ali Khan. The BJP’s pick for the biennial election was Prof M Nagaraj.

Kharge’s term was also supposed to end this month. However, the party decided to renominate him to the Upper House.

Polls for the four seats, which are elected by state MLAs, were scheduled for June 18. However, since there were no other contenders, the four candidates were declared as winners.

Elections for the seats were necessitated by the expiry of the terms of four Rajya Sabha MPs by June 25. Among those who retired are former prime minister and JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda and BJP MPs Iranna Kadadi and Narayana Koragappa.

Following their win, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar congratulated the party’s winning candidates.

“Heartiest Congratulations to Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Shri Pawan Khera, and Shri Mansoor Ali Khan on being elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka. I am confident that they will champion Karnataka’s interests in Parliament, effectively voicing the aspirations of our people and working towards the state’s continued progress and development,” he wrote in a post on X.

Speaking to reporters, Congress’s Khera and Khan thanked the party leadership for picking them as candidates for the polls.

Nagaraj also thanked the BJP’s national leadership for his election. On reports that his candidature was not referred by the state unit to the high command, he said that he had petitioned the party leadership for a Rajya Sabha berth in the past, too.

Ahead of finalising the candidate for the 2026 Rajya Sabha poll, Nagaraj said he had met the state BJP core committee members in person and submitted petitions.