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Updated: May 29, 2019 23:52 IST

Three of the five Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha MPs who contested the 2019 general election, have won, while both Congress Rajya Sabha MPs who contested lost.

For the BJP, party president Amit Shah won from Gandhinagar as he was expected to; the constituency has been a BJP citadel since 1989. Shah’s entry in Lok Sabha has also fuelled speculation that he could be given one of the key portfolios.

Two senior ministers in the outgoing NDA, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Smriti Irani successfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from two high-profile seats. Prasad defeated actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha from Patna Sahib. Smriti Irani defeated Congress president Rahul Gandhi from his family borough, Amethi.

Gandhi won from Wayanad in Kerala and saved his slot in Parliament.

Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal fielded only one Rajya Sabha MP, popular cinestar Anubhav Mohanty, and he won the Kendrapara seat. The battle of Kendrapara was touted as the biggest in Odisha after Patnaik’s one-time lieutenant Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda, one of the founder members of the BJD, left the party and joined the BJP. This was the first time Panda was fighting on a BJP ticket and it became a prestige battle for Patnaik.

M Kanimozhi of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam succeeded in winning, too, and resigned from the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. BJP ministers Hardeep Puri and KJ Alphons, both retired bureaucrats, however, failed to enter the Lower House of Parliament just as Congress’ Digvijaya Singh, Vivek Tankha and Trinamool’s Manas Bhuiyan also failed.