The BJP on Wednesday named Deepak Prakash as its Rajya Sabha candidate from Jharkhand nearly a fortnight after he was appointed as State BJP president. For winning the Rajya Sabha election in State, BJP requires the support of 27 MLAs, while it has the 26 MLAs including Babulal Marandi, who is MLA from Dhanwar.
BJP named Deepak Prakash as Rajya Sabha candidate on the day when JMM chief Shibu Soren filed nomination for Rajya Sabha candidate as JMM candidate.
After Chief Minister Hemant Soren leaving the Dumka seat the strength of MLAs in 81-member State Assembly has come down to 80. For winning the election, JMM requires the support 27 MLAs and the party has support of 29 MLAs in such situation JMM Chief Shibu Soren is sure to enter Rajya Sabha. After the first preference 27 MLAs, 52 MLAs are left and then any party needs the support of 27 MLAs as first preference for winning the election. BJP has 25 MLAs and including Marandi the strength the party is 26. The party requires the support of only one MLA for sailing the Rajya Sabha election.
As only one vote is needed by BJP to win the election the party is confident of winning the election. BJP legislative party leader Babulal Marandi said, “We are sure to win the election. AJSU party is traditional alliance of NDA and in such situation we are expecting that AJSU party having two MLAs will support BJP candidate.” Marandi also claimed that BJP will also contact independent legislators including Jamshedpur east MLA Saryu Roy for supporting Prakash. Roy the former minister in Raghubar Das Cabinet had defeated Das in last Assembly election. The saffron party is also optimistic of getting support of Amit Yadav the independent MLA from Barkatha.
BJP naming Deepak Prakash as Rajya Sabha candidate also gain importance as he had once again outwitted many bigwigs who were in fray for Rajya Sabha candidates. Former Chief Minister Raghubar Das, former BJP State President Ravindra Rai and newly-elected State President Deepak Prakash were among the frontrunners for the candidature.Prakash enjoys a close relationship with J.P. Nadda right from the time the BJP national president’s father, N.L. Nadda, was vice-chancellor of Ranchi University from August 1978 to April 1980.
Continued on Page 4 Apart from closeness with Nadda, he also enjoys good rapport with Babulal Marandi. In 2000 when Marandi became first Chief Minister of State, Prakash was made the chairman of Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation Ltd.
Prakash was among the leaders of the BJP who had quit the party along Marandi in 2006. But he returned in the BJP very soon. Prakash is also close to both former chief minister Raghubar Das and Babulal Marandi, two strong poles of the BJP in Jharkhand, and is known as a soft-spoken man of organisation.