Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Just days ahead of upcoming Rajya Sabha polls scheduled for next month, the Bharatiya Janata Party released a list of eight nominees, which include some big names like Arun Jaitley, Ravishankar Prasad and Dharmendra Pradhan.

Out of the six states from which BJP candidates for the Upper House polls have been announced, five of them are currently ruled by the saffron party. These include Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. The sixth state, Bihar, is ruled by Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) in alliance with BJP.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who has been a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat since 2012, is now being shifted to Uttar Pradesh, where BJP stormed to power with a large majority and selected Yogi Adityanath as chief minister over a year ago.

Another Union minister to be shifted from his current state is Dharmendra Pradhan, who will contest from Madhya Pradesh instead of Bihar. HRD minister Prakash Javadekar will also be made to jump from Madhya Pradesh back to his native Maharashtra this time.

Like law minister Ravishankar Prasad, who has been nominated from Bihar again, Thawar Chand Gehlot (Rajasthan), Parshottam Rupala (Gujarat), Jagat Prakash Nadda (Himachal Pradesh) and Mansukh Mandaviya (Gujarat) will also contest from their own respective states once more.

Power dynamics are all set to change in the Rajya Sabha this time after next month’s polls as BJP is expected to significantly increase its tally due to recent electoral victories. BJP individually has 58 MPs in the 239-member Upper House, while NDA collectively has 82 MPs.

By dhruv