Only 4 of 28 outgoing MPs, 2 ministers get RS renomination from BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday announced former Maharashtra chief minister (CM) Ashok Chavan as its Rajya Sabha (RS) candidate and denied Upper House re-nominations to four more Union ministers, including Dharmendra Pradhan and Mansukh Mandaviya, indicating that they could contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha (LS) elections.

The BJP’s lists of RS candidates indicated its attempt to give representation to its women, farmers, Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Class (OBC) leaders, and Sangh Parivar workers.

Of the 56 RS Members of Parliament (MPs) set to retire in April, the BJP holds 28. It re-nominated only four outgoing MPs, including the party’s National President J P Nadda, Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan, and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi. It denied re-nominations to seven Union ministers. They are Pradhan, Mandaviya, Parshottam Rupala, Bhupender Yadav, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, V Muraleedharan, and Narayan Rane. Besides Nadda, the BJP did not re-nominate any MP who has served two RS terms.

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) announced it will support Vaishnaw’s candidature. A former civil servant, Vaishnaw debuted in the RS with the BJD’s support in a by-poll in June 2019.

Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena said it will send Milind Deora to the RS from Maharashtra. Deora, a two-term Congress LS member, joined the Shinde-led Sena last month.

The Nationalist Congress Party, led by Ajit Pawar, has nominated party leader Praful Patel for one of the six vacant seats in Maharashtra. Patel, who secured his fifth term in the RS in 2022, will hold his membership until 2028. Following his election, Patel is set to resign from his current position in the House and take a fresh oath, citing “technical issues”, said party leader Sunil Tatkare. Patel’s resignation from his current seat will trigger a by-poll to fill the vacancy.

In the morning, Congress parliamentary party leader Sonia Gandhi, with her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accompanying her, filed her RS nomination from Jaipur. This will be Sonia’s maiden entry into the RS. She debuted in the LS in 1999, winning from Amethi and Bellary, and retained the former seat. She has been an MP from Raebareli since 2004. There is speculation that daughter Priyanka could step into her shoes to contest from Raebareli, a seat Feroze Gandhi and Indira Gandhi previously represented.

Party sources said Sonia’s entry into the RS from Rajasthan, rather than a Southern state, would help the party’s LS preparations in that state and deflect criticism that the Congress was increasingly restricted to the Southern states.

The Congress decided to send former Union minister Renuka Chowdhury from Telangana, party treasurer Ajay Maken from Karnataka, and Abhishek Manu Singhvi from Himachal Pradesh. Singhvi will fill the vacancy arising with Nadda’s retirement from the hill state.

The BJP announced that Nadda will be one of its four candidates from Gujarat. It dropped Union ministers Mandaviya and Rupala from Gujarat. The BJP is set to win all four vacancies from Gujarat, gaining two seats from the Congress.

Apart from Nadda, the party fielded former legislator Jasvantsinh Parmar, who won as an Independent from Godhra in 2017 and later joined the BJP. Its other two candidates from Gujarat are OBC leader Mayank Nayak and entrepreneur Govind Dholakia, the founder and chairman of Shree Ramkrishna Exports, a Surat-based diamond exporter.

From Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP is set to win four of the five vacancies, the BJP re-nominated Union Minister of State Murugan, a Dalit leader from Tamil Nadu, who was one of the eight MPs that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted for lunch at the Parliament canteen last week. It dropped Union minister Pradhan, who could contest the LS polls from Odisha.

Its other three candidates from Madhya Pradesh are BJP state women’s cell chief and OBC leader Maya Naroliya, party’s farmer cell national vice-president, who hails from Mandsaur, Banshilal Gurjar, and Umesh Nath Maharaj, an influential religious leader of the Valmiki community.

Mandsaur was the epicentre of the farmer protests in Madhya Pradesh in June 2017.

From Maharashtra, the BJP announced the candidature of former Congressman Chavan, who joined the party on Tuesday. It nominated former legislator Medha Kulkarni, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker Ajit Gopchade, who hails from Nanded, denying re-nominations to former Union minister Prakash Javadekar and Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan.

Kulkarni currently heads the BJP's women’s cell, and Gopchade heads its physician cell in Maharashtra.

The finance ministry’s White Paper, tabled in Parliament last week, mentioned the Adarsh Housing Society “scam”, which had forced Chavan to quit as Maharashtra CM in 2010.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal re-nominated Manoj Kumar Jha and announced it will send Sanjay Yadav, an aide of former deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, for the second of two seats it is set to win.

Elections to 56 RS seats, if required, are scheduled for February 27. The last date for filing nominations is February 15.

Side Lights

·         Sonia Gandhi files nomination from Rajasthan for her Rajya Sabha (RS) debut

·         Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) re-nominates only four of its 28 outgoing Members of Parliament

·         Seven Union ministers denied re-nominations

·         Two ministers re-nominated, of which Ashwini Vaishnaw gets Biju Janata Dal support

·         BJP sends party chief J P Nadda from Gujarat

·         Congress sends Ajay Maken, Renuka Chowdhury, and Abhishek Manu Singhvi to RS