The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to announce its nominees on Monday for the October 16 biennial Rajya Sabha election from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, a day before the last nomination date. It is set to comfortably win eight of the 10 seats in the country’s most populous state. The Samajwadi Party (SP), which has 101 lawmakers in the 403-member state assembly, has the numbers to win the remaining two seats.
Dinesh Sharma vacated his Rajya Sabha seat on September 11 after he was appointed Andaman and Nicobar Islands Lieutenant Governor. This will be the first time since 1994 that the BSP will have no presence in the Rajya Sabha. The BJP, the single largest party in the Upper House with 116 lawmakers in the Rajya Sabha, is set to gain a seat.
The SP has nominated Ram Gopal Yadav and Dhanraj Nathwani, a senior executive at Reliance Industries Limited, as its candidates. The party has indicated it could try to win a third seat, setting off speculation about possible cross-voting. “It is par for the course to guess names. The terms of Arun Singh, Geeta alias Chandraprabha, Neeraj Shekhar, Brijlal, BL Verma, Seema Dwivedi and Puri are ending in November. SP renominated Yadav. The term of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)’s Ramji Gautam is also ending. The party does not have the numbers for any representation in Parliament. A by-poll will also be held for one Rajya Sabha seat in West Bengal.
Since assembly polls are due next year, there is a lot of curiosity about the nominees, as people will read these as signals of how the party is balancing the caste and gender equations,” the functionary said.
