The BJP has released a list of nine candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls. (Representative Image/PTI)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has unveiled its list of nine candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections
The BJP has announced its list of candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls for which nominations will end on August 21, 2024. Of the 12 seats declared for election by the Election Commission of India, the party has released them. list of nine candidates.
Of the remaining three seats, the BJP has decided to give one Rajya Sabha seat to NCP leader Ajit Pawar’s faction. Ajit Pawar’s NCP faction has given Rajya Sabha seats under quota to former MLA Nitin Patil who jumped ship from Shiv Sena to NCP mid this year.
The saffron party has committed that the second vacant seat from Bihar, will be given to its alliance partner, Upendra Kushwaha. Meanwhile, the BJP for another seat in Bihar has made a Brahmin face by giving its Rajya Sabha nomination to the sitting president of the Bar Council of India, Manan Kumar Mishra.
After the upcoming Assembly elections in these states, the BJP has strategically given the Raja Sabha seats to the states of Maharashtra and Haryana.
Kiran Chaudhary, who jumped ship from the Congress to the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, is a Jat leader who hails from Haryana’s influential Bansilal family. The anti-Jat sentiment that bedeviled the BJP in the recent Lok Sabha elections was seen as one of the biggest reasons for Chaudhary’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha.
In the next two months, the elections will take place in the state of Maharashtra and during the recent Lok Sabha elections it has been witnessed that the BJP has given less confidence to the Maratha voters, who have proved to be the deciding factor in the state. Dhayyashil Patil, Maratha BJP candidate has been nominated by BJP for Rajya Sabha bypolls.
The 12th seat for which the BJP has yet to field a candidate is vacant from the state of Telangana, which will be contested by the Congress. The grand old party has announced the nomination of a prominent lawyer
Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi from the chair.
A look at the seats that have been announced by the BJP shows a lot of work and thought process that has gone into the selection of candidates.
A no-brainer has nominated Ravneet Singh Bittu from Rajasthan and George Kurien from Madhya Pradesh. The Rajya Sabha nominations for the two ministers were commissioned after they were sworn in as ministers in the Modi 3.0 government. Well, Bittu lost the election from Ludhiana in 2024, and George Kurien was brought into the government from the southern state of Karnataka.
KC Venugopal is a member of Parliament in the upper house from Rajasthan. He has won a Lok Sabha seat from Kerala. Apart from this Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was also elected to the Lok Sabha in 2024 vacated the Rajya Sabha seat from his home state of Madhya Pradesh.
In terms of two seats from Assam, the saffron party has fielded Rameshwar Teli. The former minister also hails from the popular tea tribe of the state of Assam, which holds a lot of importance in the political scenario of the state.
Dr. Rajdeep Roy, who is a member of parliament in 2019, did not find a nomination in 2024. The Silchar seat from where he was sitting MP was reserved during the new delimitation implemented by the state. In fact, one noted, the Bengali face of the saffron Party, Roy was appointed as the incharge of the neighboring state, Tripura. The second Rajya Sabha seat, vacated by Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, who is currently a member of Parliament, Lok Sabha has been given to Mission Ranjan Das. He is also a very old Karyakarta of the party who has served as MLA in the past as well. Das is also a Bengali.
Mamata Mohanta just a few weeks ago announced her resignation from the Biju Janata Dal. Sitting MPs have jumped ship to the BJP. He has now been nominated again as a Rajya Sabha bypoll candidate.
The BJP also sent the Tripura state president to the Rajya Sabha from the seat that fell vacant after Biplab Deb became a member of the Lok Sabha recently. There is much speculation that the party will give Rajya Sabha to its woman leader Pratima Bhowmik Sing who was denied a ticket in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Elections for 12 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on September 3, 2024. Currently, BJP has 87 members sitting in the upper house, while Congress on the other hand has 26 seats.
