News Analysis India

Tag: Rajya Sabha

  • 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 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • JDU names Kheeru Mahto as Rajya Sabha poll candidate, snubs Union Minister RCP Singh

    Express News Service

    PATNA: The suspense over JDU’s Rajya Sabha candidate finally ended on Sunday when the party nominated Jharkhand unit chief Khiru Mahto even as its ally, BJP also announced the names of its two candidates for the Upper House of the Parliament.

    Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refused to re-nominate his one-time close aide and Union Minister RCP Singh which is likely to have repercussions for the party.

    The party’s decision may cost RCP his ministerial berth unless BJP comes to his rescue and re-nominates him to Rajya Sabha.

    Both JD (U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh and party parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha remained tight-lipped about the reasons behind the refusal of RCP’s re-nomination.

    Lalan Singh said it was wrong to say that factionalism in the party cost RCP his re-nomination for the third term, asserting that there was only one camp in the party and that was Nitish Kumar camp.

    The party’s decision to nominate Mahto is seen as Nitish’s ploy to dilute the impact of his refusal to re-nominate to Rajya Sabha. It is still not known whether BJP was taken in the loop before JDU’s top brass decided not to re-nominate RCP.

    Nitish was reportedly unhappy with RCP ever since the latter joined the Union Cabinet as the JD(U) wanted two ministerial berths in the Cabinet. Nitish had also not congratulated RCP after his induction into the union cabinet.

    Both Lalan Singh and Upendra Kushwaha said that the party decided to nominate Mahto as he has been associated with the party since the formation of the erstwhile Samata Party. 

    “His nomination to Rajya Sabha will strengthen the support base of the party in Jharkhand,” Lalan said.

  • Top leaders in race as Congress may get 11 Rajya Sabha seats, improve its position in Upper House 

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.

    This will also help Congress strengthen its party position in the Upper House of Parliament from the current 29 to 33 members.

    Some other top Congress leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Randeep Surjewala, Ajay Maken and Rajeev Shukla, are waiting in the wings to get a Rajya Sabha nomination.

    Of the 55 vacancies arising in the Rajya Sabha in the next two months, seven Congress members — Chidambaram (Maharashtra), Ramesh (Karnataka), Ambika Soni (Punjab), Vivek Tankha (Madhya Pradesh), Pradeep Tamta (Uttarakhand), Kapil Sibal (Uttar Pradesh) and Chhaya Verma (Chhattisgarh) — will be completing their terms.

    The Congress will be gaining three to four seats in the Upper House if it manages to get all the three seats that are falling vacant in Rajasthan.

    While the party will get two seats in Chhattisgarh, where it is in power, it will get one seat each in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, where it shares power with other like-minded parties.

    The Congress is also likely to get one seat each in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka on the strength of its MLAs in these states.

    Sources said while Chidambaram and Ramesh are hopeful that the party leadership would give a nod to them for another term, there are a host of other leaders who are waiting for a Rajya Sabha berth for some time now.

    Chidambaram is eyeing the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Tamil Nadu.

    He has already met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK leader M K Stalin.

    However, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s team is pushing for a young face in Praveen Chakravarty, the head of the party’s Data Analytics department, for the seat.

    Three-time Rajya Sabha member Ramesh will get a fourth term if his name is cleared for the lone seat in Karnataka, from where Surjewala is also a contender.

    In Haryana, Surjewala, Kumari Selja and Kuldeep Bishnoi are vying for the lone seat, but former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is pushing for the nomination of Anand Sharma.

    The former Union minister is a prominent member of the “Group of 23” and is considered close to Hooda, who is also a member of the grouping.

    Sources said Kapil Sibal was offered a Rajya Sabha berth by ally Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), but the Congress leadership was not ready.

    Sibal quit the Congress on Wednesday and got a Rajya Sabha nomination from Uttar Pradesh as an Independent with the support of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

    In Chhattisgarh, the Congress has two seats and Shukla is vying for another term from the state.

    The Congress will surely get two seats from Rajasthan and may also get another seat with the support of some MLAs.

    Maken and Azad are said to be strong contenders for the seats.

    In Maharashtra, where the party shares power in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, it may get one Rajya Sabha seat, and Wasnik and Avinash Pande are in the race for it.

    The race is also between the old guard in the Congress and the young leaders, who are keen to get a Rajya Sabha nomination, keeping in view the party’s push for the youth.

    However, this may not happen immediately as the “50 below 50” formula will not be applicable in the current Rajya Sabha nominations, the sources said. 

  • Samajwadi Party may reciprocate Kapil Sibal’s help to Azam Khan, send him to Rajya Sabha

    Express News Service

    LUCKNOW: While the process of filing nomination for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections took off on Tuesday, the parties including the ruling BJP and main opposition SP are in the process of finalizing their list of candidates. Of the 57 seats, set to go to polls on June 10, UP will send 11 members to the upper house.

    As per the numbers, the BJP is sure to win at least 7 seats and SP three comfortably. However, for 11th seat, there could be a contest as the BJP with 273 members in Assembly, is short of 15 votes to win an added seat and SP, with 125 MLAs, would need 20 more votes to win the fourth seat. So, this situation may bring second preference vote into play as each member will need 36.63 votes to get elected. As per the highly-placed sources, of the three seats which SP is sure to win, one each may be given to RLD chief Jayant Chaudhury and veteran Congress leader Kapil Sibal.

    The party insiders also claimed that SP is scheduled to convene a meeting of its MLAs an MLCs this weekend to take a final call on candidates for the three seats the party is sure to win of the 11 seats that are up for grabs. The 11 seats are currently represented by BJP(5), SP(3), BSP(2) and Congress (1).

    If Jayant Chaudhury makes it to Rajya Sabha, he will return to Parliament after eight years as he had represented Mathura in Lok Sabha from 2009-2014.

    However, the fate of Kapil Sibal, a prominent face of Congress’s G-23, is still uncertain. In his last term, Sibal was elected from UP with the support of the Samajwadi Party. Sibal, completing term in Rajya Sabha in July, is believed to have a warm relationship with many SP leaders including the SP chief and Azam Khan.

    Sibal represented jailed SP leader Azam Khan in Supreme Court and helped him secure interim bail. He also helped Akhilesh Yadav retain the party’s bicycle symbol in 2017 when the first family was locked in an intense family feud, probably the worst in the SP’s existence.

    As per the SP sources, the Samajwadi Party is seeking to reciprocate for the help Sibal extended to Azam Khan in his legal battle. However, there has not be an official word on it. “The party has not decided on the candidates yet”, said SP national secretary and the state spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary.

    However, when Azam Khan, who is currently in Lucknow to attend the ongoing Assembly session, asked about the probability of Sibal being sent to Rajya Sabha from UP by the SP, he expressed his happiness saying if the party was thinking on those lines, he would support the move.

    On the other, state Congress leaders chose to remain non-committal over the possibility saying the Congress high command would take the decision. However, this time, the Congress, with two MLAs in UP, is not in a position to field a candidate on its own. 

  • Rajya Sabha polls to 57 seats from 15 states on June 10: Election Commission

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Elections will be held on June 10 to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states falling vacant due to the retirement of members on different dates between June and August, the Election Commission said on Thursday.

    Prominent among those retiring are Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Congress leaders Ambika Soni, Jairam Ramesh and Kapil Sibal, and BSP’s Satish Chandra Misra.

    Members are retiring between June 21 and August 1.

    While 11 seats are falling vacant in Uttar Pradesh, six members each are retiring from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, five from Bihar and four each from Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka.

    Three members each from Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, two each from Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Punjab Jharkhand and Haryana, and one from Uttarakhand are also retiring.

    The notification for the polls will be issued on May 24 and voting will be held on June 10.

    According to established practice, counting will take place an hour after the conclusion of polling.

    Most of the new members who get elected are likely to vote in the President’s election, due sometime in July.