Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Minister of State for Parliamentary and Minority Affairs, will be BJP's nominee for the Rajya Sabha seat from Jharkhand. The party on Sunday stamped on his name after its Central Election Committee meeting. Party sources said he would file his nomination on Monday.
Naqvi, is a member of the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh for the last two terms and holding charge of Parliamentary Affairs Ministry in the Modi Government.
The BJP has 43 MlA of its own and taking along four of the alliance partner AJSU, he would comfortably sail through as just 28 first preference votes are need for the purpose.
Importantly, the party, as speculated earlier did not name anyone for the second seat going for election in the State and in a sense has paved way for the Opposition to field a united candidate.
With this, curtains on the rapport between the JMM and the Congress have started lifting up and Congress MP Dheeraj Sahu withdrew his claims for the biennial race. Now all eyes are on JMM's Monday meeting called to discuss the matter and in all probability would make its nominee for Upper House public.
"He for the sake of unity in the UPA fold has decided not stake claim for the Congress ticket," said a close associate of the MP whose term is going to expire in July. The development has come since the JMM has more or less got positive signals from the Congress regarding fielding candidates for the lone seat open for the Opposition in Jharkhand.
However any official confirmation from the party is yet to come, JMM sources are confident of getting support of Congress' seven MlAs to clinch the seat. "We have got sufficient hints and based on that I can say for sure that there is going to be a joint candidate from the UPA. Both the JMM and Congress know that any division among the anti-BJP camp is going to benefit the BJP," JMM Rajya Sabha MP Sajeev Kumar told The Pioneer on Sunday.
Sanjeev Kumar was present in the Friday meeting of Hemant Soren with Congress national president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi in which, he said, the leader had agreed to stop disintegration of Opposition votes. "She said that we would be informed about their decision but looked positive after knowing ground reality in Jharkhand," added the MP.
State Congress nevertheless is still looking stubborn over fielding its own candidate despite withdrawal of Sahu, who had already purchased nomination paper for his re-election to the Elders House. "We have no report about his taking back candidature. But one thing should be kept in mind that it is the Congress and not the JMM that has to do national politics. Anyway, besides Dheeraj Sahu, we have other names like Subodh Kant Sahay, Rajendra Singh into the fray for the ticket," said PCC president Sukhdeo Bhagat.
Notably Congress does not have numbers required even to meet proposers list for a candidate. The JMM with 19 members is looking for seven of the Congress and others to reach the magic figure 28 and double its strength in the Rajya Sabha from current one.
"The party wants to remove role of money power from the Rajya Sabha and thus we have also decided that the candidate would be an active party worker who takes part in JMM's day to day activities and not any businessman or outsider," stressed Sanjeev Kumar.
However he did not disclose probable names but indications coming in suggest younger brother of Hemant Soren, Basant Soren, is among the front runners for the seat going under poll on June 11, if required at all. Date of making nomination ends on Tuesday and if only two candidates file their papers there would be no need of voting.