Rajya Sabha elections 2024: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has today (February 11) announced its candidates from Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.
Sudhanshu Trivedi, RPN Singh, Subhash Barala, Mahendra Bhatt, and other candidates are nominated from seven states of India. Former Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala was announced as the party's candidate from Haryana.
BJP on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister RPN Singh and outgoing MP Sudhanshu Trivedi from Uttar Pradesh and its Uttarakhand unit president Mahendra Bhatt from the hill state.
None of the Union ministers, whose terms are coming to an end, were named in the list amid a strong possibility that many of them will contest the Lok Sabha polls. However, the party is yet to name many candidates.
Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who represents Karnataka in Rajya Sabha, and BJP chief spokesperson and media head Anil Baluni, the outgoing MP from Uttarakhand, have not been nominated. Both may be fielded by the party in the Lok Sabha polls, sources said.
Senior Bihar leader Sushil Kumar Modi's fate hangs in a balance as his name did not figure among the candidates named by the party. Bihar has six vacancies and both the ruling NDA and the opposition are likely to win three seats each, going by their current strengths. The JD(U), a BJP ally, is likely to name its candidate for one seat.
RPN Singh, who comes from the politically important Kurmi caste, was in the Congress before joining the BJP. Former Haryana BJP president Subhash Barala will be the party's candidate from the state.
When RS polls will take place?
Elections for 56 Rajya Sabha seats spread across 15 states are scheduled to be held on February 27 (Tuesday), and the last date for filing nominations is February 15 (Thursday). The RS terms of K Ravindra Kumar (TDP), CM Ramesh (BJP) and V Prabhakar Reddy (YSRCP) from Andhra Pradesh will end soon.
TMC names journalist Sagarika Ghose, Sushmita Dev for RS polls
The Trinamool Congress today announced the names of journalist Sagarika Ghose, party leader Sushmita Dev and two others for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls from the state. Elections to the five Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal will be held on February 27.
"We are pleased to announce the candidature of @sagarikaghose, @SushmitaDevAITC, @MdNadimulHaque6 and Mamata Bala Thakur for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections", the party posted on X.
"We extend our heartfelt wishes to them and may they work towards upholding Trinamool's enduring legacy of indomitable spirit and advocacy for the rights of every Indian", it said.
While Nadimul Haque, a two-time Rajya Sabha MP, finds himself back in the limelight, the decision not to renominate three sitting MPs- Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas, and Santanu Sen- marks a notable shift in the party's strategy.
Ghose, a renowned journalist, is yet to officially join the TMC. Former Congress leader Dev, who had joined the TMC in 2021, has been the party's Rajya Sabha MP from October 2021 to August 2023, after TMC leader Manas Bhunia vacated the seat to join the West Bengal cabinet.
Dev, who is also TMC's national spokesperson, looks after the party's affairs in Assam. However, the nomination that's captured significant attention is that of former Lok Sabha MP and Matua leader Mamata Bala Thakur. A two-time Lok Sabha MP, Thakur faced defeat in the Matua-dominated Bongaon seat to BJP's Shantanu Thakur, a relative, in 2019.
Thakur's nomination comes amidst BJP's efforts to court the Matua community with promises of implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The Matua community's cohesive voting behaviour makes them a crucial voting bloc, particularly aligned with the BJP's stance on the CAA.
Riding on the promises of the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Matua community played a pivotal role in the saffron surge in the state during the 2019 elections. Expressing gratitude for the opportunity to serve the masses, veteran journalist Nadimul Haque acknowledged the support of TMC leaders Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee.
"I thank our party supremo Mamata Banerjee and general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for providing me this opportunity for the third time to serve the masses," he said.
With the TMC enjoying a comfortable majority of 217 in the 294-member assembly, including the support of six BJP MLAs who defected to the ruling party but are yet to resign, the party's dominance in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections seems assured. Though the official tally of the BJP in the assembly is 74, unofficially it is 68, owing to defections.
As per the strength in the assembly, out of the five Rajya Sabha seats, the TMC is set to claim four, while the BJP will secure the fifth.
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