The BJP has nominated its Delhi unit chief Vijay Goel as its Rajya Sabha nominee from Rajasthan and retained senior party leader Prabhat Jha from Madhya Pradesh.
The central election committee of the party attended by BJP president Rajnath Singh and BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi re-nominated Dr CP Thakur from Bihar and decided to field RK Sinha, who worked with Nitin Gadkari in the Delhi Assembly poll, from Bihar. Former Minister Satyanarayan Jatia will be party’s second candidate from Madhya Pradesh while Narayan Pancharia and Ram Narayan Dudi are BJP’s two other nominees from Rajasthan. The BJP authorised Rajnath Singh to announce the names of six other candidate from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and MP.
Meanwhile, Janata Dal (U) on Friday named Ramnath Thakur, Kahkashan Praveen and Harivansh as its Rajya Sabha nominees from Bihar. Ramnath Thakur is the son of veteran socialist leader and former Bihar CM Karpoori Tahkur and he comes from the Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) while Kahkashan Praveen is the chairperson of the Bihar Rajya Mahila Aayog and she comes from the minority community. Both had lost the last Assembly election on JD-U tickets. Harivansh is the chief editor of Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar and belongs to the Rajput caste.
As reported earlier, the JD-U dumped all its three retiring members Shivanand Tiwari, NK Singh and Sabir Ali.
Earlier in the day, speculation was rife that JD-U chief Sharad Yadav himself wanted to be one of the party candidate for the RS seat. Sources said Nitish Kumar has offered relatively safe Nalanda lok Sabha seat to Sharad Yadav instead of giving in to his RS seat insistence. Sharad Yadav had reportedly cited health ground to opt for RS seat. It is not know what brought the truce between these two top party leaders, but later in the day Sharad Yadav announced the names while addressing the crowd on the occasion of Karpoori Tahkur Jayanti Samaroh.
With its present strength in the Assembly, JD-U would win all the three seats. On the remaining two seats in Bihar, the BJP now has to announce names of its party candidates. The State BJP leaders were camping in Delhi and the names would be announced soon. Meanwhile, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit may reach the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh. Sources said the party leadership is favourably disposed to field Dikshit for the Rajya Sabha seat from the hill State. The seat will fall vacant in April at the end of the six-year term of BJP leader Shanta Kumar.
Congress’ Rajya Sabha nominations are expected to be decided on Saturday when party vice-president Rahul Gandhi will discuss the names with party’s general secretaries. The general secretaries have been asked to come to the meeting after holding consultations with the PCC presidents and ClP leaders on the possible candidates.
Due to the dwindling numbers, the Congress can have two seats to the upper house from Maharashtra and Assam and one each from Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. With the party’s debacle in Rajasthan in the recent Assembly polls and earlier in Tamil Nadu, the party cannot have even a single member from these States. Former Mahila Congress chief Prabha Thakur and former Union Minister Jayanthi Natarajan are the retiring members from these two States. Union Minister GK Vasan is also among the retiring members.
The talk in Maharashtra is that retiring members Murli Deora and Hussain Dalwai could be re-nominated and so appears to be the case for party veteran Motilal Vora from Chhattisgarh. Former Chief Minister of Manipur Rishang Keishing is also among the retiring members.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) has decided to field SFI general secretary Ritabrata Banerjee as left Front candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls. However, in an apparent attempt to widen the gap between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, it conveyed to the Congress leadership that left Front had decided to support an independent candidate nominated by the Congress.
“We will field one candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls and support the Congress-nominated independent candidate in the other seat,” left Front chairman Biman Bose said. Five Rajya Sabha seats will be falling vacant in the State in April, for which polls are scheduled on February 7.