News Analysis India

Tag: Rajya Sabha polls

  • Rajya Sabha polls: Rajasthan BSP whip asks its 6 MLAs, who have merged with Congress, to vote for Subhash Chandra

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: The Rajasthan BSP Saturday issued a whip asking six MLAs who had won as BSP candidates but later merged with the Congress to vote for only Independent candidate Subhash Chandra who is in the fray for the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections.

    Issuing the whip, BSP state president Bhagwan Singh Baba said the six MLAs had won their seats in the 2018 state polls on BSP symbol and “are bound to work as per the party whip”.

    “The BSP does not agree with the policies of the Congress and the BJP, and therefore opposes their candidates. The party has issued a whip directing the MLAs to vote for the Independent candidate,” he said, adding appropriate action will be taken if the whip is violated.

    The six MLAs are: Rajendra Gudha, Lakhan Meena, Deepchand Kheria, Sandeep Yadav, Joginder Awana and Wajib Ali.

    They had who the 2018 assembly elections as BSP candidates, but merged the BSP legislature party with the ruling Congress in September 2019.

    The election on four seats of Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan will take place on June 10.

    The Congress has shifted many of its MLAs and Independents to a hotel in Udaipur to protect them from horse trading.

    Of the six BSP turned Congress MLAs, only one — Joginder Awana — is in the camp in Udaipur.

    Rajendra Gudha, who is a minister of state, expressed his resentment Thursday, saying the MLAs do not get due respect in the Congress.

    The Congress has fielded Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Surjewala and Pramod Tiwari, while the BJP has nominated former minister Ghanshyam Tiwari and supported media baron Subhash Chandra who has filed nomination as an independent.

  • Rajya Sabha elections: 4 BSP turncoats spell trouble for Rajasthan Congress

    By IANS

    UDAIPUR: As the Rajya Sabha (RS) polls near, the resort politics has started again, and pictures of Congress MLAs living a lavish life in Udaipur-based five-star hotel are going viral.

    This is the same hotel which hosted Congress’ Chintan Shivir, however, Congress concerns seem to be escalating as six Congress MLAs are yet to join the political fencing and have missed their Friday deadline.

    It needs to be mentioned here that the BJP has supported Subhas Chandra as its second candidate for the RS seat which has heightened the worries of the Congress and thus it has taken its MLAs for political fencing to Udaipur.

    The trouble makers in Gehlot’s nest are ex-BSP MLAs who were seen enjoying a safari in Sariska while the Congress MLAs were going camping and their pictures were going viral. In fact, they are openly speaking about their annoyance with the Congress government.

    On Friday Rajendra Gudha, Rajasthan Minister of State for Sainik Kalyan attacked Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, saying that the latter talks a lot but it will be better for him if he sits down and get “anxious” instead.

    He alleged that Congress did not fulfil the promise made to them. Expressing his displeasure, he said, “It is a fact that the respect that should have been given to us was not given. I don’t know what was their compulsion. Gehlot sahib speaks a lot in the media. Ajay Maken promised us but he did not fulfil it.”

    In his statement to media, he said, “Gehlot saheb bolte bahut hain, bolte toh hain he, ke ye kiya, media mein bolte hain. Kabhi baith ke chinta karte toh zyada theek hota (Gehlot sahib talks a lot, he does talk a lot, that he has done this, he says so in the media. But it would have been better had he sat down and get anxious).”

    Another BSP turned Congress MLA Wajib Ali raised questions about the stance of the bureaucracy and the lack of action against complaints sent to the Chief Minister. He has also taunted Gehlot.

    Ali was neither made a minister nor given a political appointment despite coming from BSP to Congress. This is considered the main reason for his “displeasure”.

    Apart from Gudha and Ali, two other BSP-turned-Congress leaders including Lakhan Singh (Karauli MLA) and Sandeep Kumar (Tijara, Alwar) are yet to reach Udaipur. Also missing are Girraj Singh (Bari, Dholpur) and Khiladi Lal Bairwa (Baseri, Dholpur).

    Sources said that Chief Minister Gehlot has taken the charge to bring all MLAs to Udaipur.

    Ali further has left the Chief Minister red-faced by denying his claim. Gehlot a day earlier had told the media that the Central government has issued notice to Congress MLA Ali and is threatening the MLAs during the Rajya Sabha elections. However, Ali refuted Gehlot’s claim. He said that till now he has not received any notice from the Central agencies. Even he gets so (the notice), he is ready for investigation.

    Meanwhile, former deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot has left for Delhi on Friday evening. He reached the airport directly from Taj Aravali Resort in Udaipur.

    Earlier, Pilot with other MLAs including Ramila Khadia (who too was angry with Gehlot), went to Udaipur in a plane. Former state Congress chief said that the party shall win on all three seats. He will return to Udaipur on Monday.

  • Rajya Sabha polls: Papers of Independent candidate rejected; BJP, SP nominees set to get elected unopposed

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: The nomination of Independent candidate Mauni Falhari Bapu was rejected for the Rajya Sabha elections on Wednesday while papers of 11 BJP and Samajwadi Party candidates were accepted, paving the way for the unopposed election of nominees of the two parties.

    A statement from the office of Chief Electoral Officer here said that nomination of the Independent candidate Bapu was cancelled during scrutiny.

    It, however, did not mention the reason for the rejection.

    With the rejection of the Independent candidate’s papers, 11 candidates, eight of the BJP and three from SP camp, are left in the fray for as many seats of Parliament falling vacant by July from the state.

    June 3 is the last date for the withdrawal of nomination while June 10 is the poll date if necessary.

    Those who submitted their papers from the ruling BJP are OBC Morcha national president K Laxman, former state party chief Laxmikant Vajpayee, Mithilesh Kumar, Radha Mohan Das Aggarwal, Surendra Singh Nagar, Baburam Nishad, Darshana Singh and Sangeeta Yadav.

    The Samajwadi Party has fielded Javed Ali Khan and supported Independent candidate Kapil Sibal and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhury Among the BJP candidates, Mithilesh Kumar is a former Lok Sabha MP from Shahjahanpur.

    He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

    He is also a two-time MLA from Shahjahanpur’s Powayan Assembly constituency, which he had won once as an independent and later on the Samajwadi Party ticket.

    K Laxman is the national president of the BJP’s OBC Morcha.

    He was also the former president of BJP’s Telangana unit.

    Radha Mohan Das Aggarwal, a former party MLA, had vacated the Gorakhpur Urban Assembly seat for Yogi Adityanath.

    Laxmikant Vajpayee is a former state unit chief and Surendra Nagar is a sitting Rajya Sabha MP.

    Bauburam Nishad is the chairman of UP Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation.

    With 273 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the BJP-led alliance will easily be able to get eight members elected to the Upper House of Parliament while the SP and its allies (RLD and SBSP), with a strength of 125 legislators, will be able to ensure the victory of three candidates.

    Uttar Pradesh sends 31 members to the Rajya Sabha.

    The BJP has selected its nominees keeping in mind the social equation with an eye on the 2024 General Election.

  • Bar six Rajasthan MLAs who defected to Congress from voting in Rajya Sabha polls, demands BSP

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: The Bahujan Samaj Party on Wednesday wrote to Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra and Assembly Speaker C P Joshi demanding that the six party MLAs who had defected to the Congress be barred from voting in the Rajya Sabha polls.

    The elections to four seats of the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan will be held on June 10.

    State BSP president Bhagwan Singh Baba in the letter said a case under the Anti-Defection Law is going on against the MLAs in the Supreme Court.

    “In such a situation, these six MLAs should be stopped from voting in the Rajya Sabha elections because the BSP has decided that it will not support any party or independent in the Rajya Sabha elections,” Baba said.

    Reacting to this, state Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra said the six MLAs had merged with the Congress and now they are party legislators.

    The six MLA–Rajendra Gudha, Lakhan Meena, Deepchand Kheria, Sandeep Yadav, Joginder Awana and Wajib Ali–had joined the Congress in September 2019.

    The Congress at present has 108 MLAs.

    The Congress has fielded three candidates for the elections and the BJP one.

    The Congress has decided to shift its MLAs in Rajasthan to a Udaipur hotel, with party sources saying they fear that the BJP will poach them ahead of the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections.

    The Congress move has come a day after media baron Subhash Chandra, who is backed by the BJP, filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.

    The filing of papers by him as an independent candidate had prompted Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to allege that the BJP wants to indulge in horse trading.

  • Rajya Sabha polls: Independent MLAs meet Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Congress candidates

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: Ten of 13 independent MLAs in Rajasthan met Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Congress candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections here on Tuesday night.

    Discussions about the Rajya Sabha elections to be held on June 10 took place in the meeting, party sources said.

    State Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra and party candidates Mukul Wasnik, Pramod Tiwari and Randeep Singh Surjewal were present on the occasion.

    The elections to four seats of the Rajya Sabha in Rajasthan will take place on June 10.

    The Congress has fielded three candidates and the BJP one.

    Backed by the BJP, media baron Subhash Chandra filed his nomination for the elections to the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, a move that could scuttle the Congress chances of winning a third seat from Rajasthan.

    Essel Group chairman Chandra is currently a Rajya Sabha member from Haryana and his term is going to expire on August 1.

    The filing of papers by him as an independent prompted Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to allege that the BJP wants to indulge in horse trading.

    The ruling Congress in Rajasthan with its 108 MLAs in the state Assembly is set to win two of the four seats going to the elections.

    After winning two seats, the Congress will have 26 surplus votes, 15 short of the required 41 to win the third seat.

    On the other hand, the BJP has 71 MLAs in the state Assembly and set to win one seat, after which it will be left with 30 surplus votes.

    The Congress is expecting support of independent MLAs and legislators of other parties to win the third seat.

  • BJP announces 22 candidates for Rajya Sabha polls; to support 2 Independents

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The BJP has announced 22 candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls and the party has decided to support one Independent candidate each from Rajasthan and Haryana.

    Though the party’s list of Rajya Sabha candidates includes the names of Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, some other prominent names such as that of minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and senior leaders Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and OP Mathur were missing.

    Senior BJP leader and former cabinet minister Prakash Javadekar’s name was earlier wrongly mentioned among those missing from the list.

    His current Rajya Sabha tenure is till 2024.

    The BJP has fielded eight candidates from Uttar Pradesh, three each from Maharashtra and Karnataka, two each from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, and one each from Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Haryana.

    The saffron party will support two Independent candidates – Subhash Chandra from Rajasthan and Kartikeya Sharma from Haryana.

    Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje met Chandra in the Assembly lobby earlier in the day.

    His tenure as a Rajya Sabha MP from Haryana will end on August 1.

    On the other hand, BJP’s ally Jannayak Janata Party has also announced its support for Sharma’s candidature.

  • BJP announces 4 more candidates for RS polls, fields party’s OBC wing head K Laxman from Uttar Pradesh

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The BJP on Monday announced four more candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.

    The BJP’s OBC wing chief K Laxman has been fielded from Uttar Pradesh, Sumitra Valmiki from Madhya Pradesh, Lal Singh Sirhoya from Karnataka and Mithilesh Kumar from Uttar Pradesh, according to a statement issued by the party.

    With this, the BJP has announced a total of 22 candidates for the election on June 10 to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats from various states.

    The BJP had on Sunday announced 18 candidates for the polls.

    Names of some prominent BJP leaders, including Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Prakash Javadekar and O P Mathur, were missing from the list.

  • Snubbed by JDU, Union minister RCP Singh to seek PM’s advice on continuing in Cabinet

    By PTI

    PATNA: Chastened by the snub from his JD(U), which has denied him another term in the Rajya Sabha, Union minister RCP Singh on Monday said he will seek advice from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on whether he should continue in the cabinet.

    Talking to reporters for the first time after being blindsided by the party he once headed, Singh, however, swore by his loyalty towards Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the de facto leader of the JD(U), claiming that he had become a minister in the Union cabinet with “full approval” of the latter.

    “For all that I have achieved in my political career so far, I thank Nitish babu. I will continue to work for the party organisation in whatever capacity he deems fit for me. As far as Union cabinet is concerned, since it is the Prime Minister’s prerogative I will have to seek his advice. If he says I should resign, I will do so,” said the bureaucrat-turned-politician.

    Singh is serving his second consecutive tenure at the Rajya Sabha, which comes to an end in July.

    As per rules, he can continue as a Union minister, without being a member of either house of Parliament, for not more than six months.

    The JD(U) had sprung a surprise on Sunday when it announced its Jharkhand unit chief and former MLA Kheeru Mahto as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar.

    The former UP cadre IAS officer, who was the JD(U) national president till the time he got inducted into the Union cabinet, pooh-poohed suggestions that the Bihar chief minister was upset over his accepting a ministerial berth despite the latter being opposed to a “token representation” and insisting on a “respectable” share.

    Notably, Kumar had turned down the offer of “token representation” made by BJP to all allies soon after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, which saw Modi returning to power with a brute majority.

    Induction of RCP Singh in the cabinet last year was viewed in many quarters as a softening of stance by Kumar, in the wake of his diminished strength in the state assembly in 2020 polls.

    However, many JD(U) leaders claimed on condition of anonymity that Kumar was still insistent on a greater share in the Union cabinet, in view of the fact that following the exit of the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal, the NDA was bereft of major allies and his party was the BJP’s oldest and largest coalition partner.

    The JD(U) leaders also contended that RCP, who belongs to the same Nalanda district and Kurmi caste as Kumar, might have misled the BJP leadership into believing that the Bihar CM was now ready for a smaller share in power at the Centre.

    Despite his professed admiration for Kumar, RCP Singh did not seem impressed with speculations that his political mentor was a “prime ministerial candidate”.

    “You tell me how is that possible. To become the PM, you need 273 MPs. Our party is confined to Bihar. People like H D Deve Gowda became PM but how long did they last? Our leader Nitish babu has already made history. He is the longest-serving chief minister of the state,” said the Union minister, who is seen by many in the JD(U) as having grown too close to the BJP.

    The former JD(U) president also rubbished speculations about his tug of war with his successor Rajeev Ranjan Singh alias Lalan.

    “I had accompanied him (Lalan) when he was filing his nomination papers from Munger during the Lok Sabha polls. I have excellent relations with all colleagues in the party,” he said.

  • Rajya Sabha polls: Congress manages to convince JMM to back its candidate in Jharkhand

    Express News Service

    RANCHI: Amid trouble mounting on CM Hemant Soren over mining lease allegations, Congress is said to have managed to convince JMM to back its candidate in the upcoming Rajya Sabha (RS) Polls in Jharkhand. JMM insiders informed that Soren, after a long meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at New Delhi on Saturday, has withdrawn his claim over the RS seat in Jharkhand and agreed to back Congress candidate for the same.

    The announcement of the candidate from the Congress Party will is likely to take place by late in the evening.

    “I won’t speak on whether the candidate for Rajya Sabha elections from Jharkhand will be of the Congress or of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), still there’s some time. Discussions are going on regarding it and after that, it’ll be announced,” CM Hemant Soren told media in New Delhi.

    Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur also asserted that a leader from Jharkhand should go to Rajya Sabha.

    “Still, we will follow what our president Sonia Gandhi says. The list will come today and positive talks were held (with JMM) and I can say that there will be a Congress candidate,” said Thakur.

    Notably, two seats of Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand will go to the polls as the tenures of Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and BJP MP Mahesh Poddar are ending on July 7. The last date for filing nominations is May 31, while the voting will be held on June 10.

    In 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, JMM has 30 MLAs and a candidate needs only 27 votes to win. Congress on the other hand has 17 MLAs while BJP has 26 MLAs along with 2 MLAs of AJSU. Besides RJD, CPI (ML) and NCP each having 1 MLA, Jharkhand Assembly also has 2 independent MLAs.

    Earlier a week ago, JMM General Secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya, holding a press conference, had announced that it has already been decided ahead of 2019 elections that JMM will field its candidate for all Rajay Sabha seats getting vacant during 2019 and 2024. But, soon after meeting Sonia Gandhi, Soren changed his stand.

    In the present scenario, the grand alliance will get one of the two seats and BJP is also likely to get one seat in Rajya Sabha, if it succeeds in bringing the two independent MLAs to its side.

    JMM chief Shibu Soren and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Deepak Prakash had won the two seats in 2020. The Congress had fielded Shahzada Anwar as its candidate who lost it for not having adequate numbers.

  • Balbir Singh Seechewal, Vikramjit Singh Sahney to be AAP candidates for Rajya Sabha from Punjab

    By PTI

    CHANDIGARH: The ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab on Saturday declared noted environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal and an entrepreneur, philanthropist and social activist Vikramjit Singh Sahney as its candidates for Rajya Sabha seats from the state.

    An announcement in this regard was made by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on his Twitter handle.

    “I am happy to announce that AAP is nominating two Padma Shri awardees for the Rajya Sabha. One is environmentalist Padma Shri Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal and second is Padma Shri Vikramjit Singh Sahney. My best wishes to both of them,” said CM Mann in a tweet.

    The term of Rajya Sabha members from Punjab Ambika Soni (Congress) and Balwinder Singh Bhunder (Shiromani Akali Dal) is due to expire on July 4.

    The last date for the filing of nominations is May 31.

    The scrutiny of nominations will be done on June 1 while the last date of for the withdrawal of candidature is June 3.

    The date of polling is June 10 from 9 am to 4 pm.

    The counting will be held on the same day at 5 pm.