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Rajya Sabha election: BJP expected to announce Uttar Pradesh nominees today
The BJP will announce nominees Monday for the Rajya Sabha elections in UP, expected to win 8 of 10 seats, while SP aims for the remaining 2.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to announce its nominees on Monday for the October 16 biennial Rajya Sabha election from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, a day before the last nomination date. It is set to comfortably win eight of the 10 seats in the country’s most populous state. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which has 101 lawmakers in the 403-member state assembly, has the numbers to win the remaining two seats.
The SP has nominated Ram Gopal Yadav and Dhanraj Nathwani, a senior executive at Reliance Industries Limited, as its candidates. The party has indicated it could try to win a third seat, setting off speculation about possible cross-voting.
The Rajya Sabha terms of Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma are set to end in November, and they are expected to be renominated from Uttar Pradesh. Caste, gender and demographic considerations are expected to be factored in while picking the nominees. The BJP is likely to field at least three women, said a functionary.
Smriti Irani and Harish Dwivedi, who were named BJP national general secretaries in August, and state leaders Subrat Pathak, Ramapati Ram Tripathi, and Durvijay Shakya are among the other possible contenders.
“It is par for the course to guess names. Since assembly polls are due next year, there is a lot of curiosity about the nominees, as people will read these as signals of how the party is balancing the caste and gender equations,” the functionary said.
Dinesh Sharma vacated his Rajya Sabha seat on September 11 after he was appointed Andaman and Nicobar Islands Lieutenant Governor. The terms of Arun Singh, Geeta alias Chandraprabha, Neeraj Shekhar, Brijlal, BL Verma, Seema Dwivedi and Puri are ending in November. SP renominated Yadav. The term of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)’s Ramji Gautam is also ending. The party does not have the numbers for any representation in Parliament. This will be the first time since 1994 that the BSP will have no presence in the Rajya Sabha.
The BJP, the single largest party in the Upper House with 116 lawmakers in the Rajya Sabha, is set to gain a seat. A by-poll will also be held for one Rajya Sabha seat in West Bengal.
The BJP is comfortably placed to win the seat from Uttarakhand, which will fall vacant after Naresh Bansal’s term ends on November 25. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s tally in the 245-member House is set to go up to 154.
