Rajya Sabha elections: BJP re-nominates only 4 of 28 retiring MPs
Only four of the 28 Rajya Sabha MPs from BJP who retired were re-nominated. The four are JP Nadda, Ashwini Vaishnaw, L Murugan and Sudhanshu Trivedi.
Of them, JP Nadda is the BJP president, while Vaishnaw and Murugan are cabinet ministers, and Trivedi is a national spokesperson.
A total of 56 seats are falling vacant in this round of the biennial elections, scheduled for February 27.
The BJP can win 27 seats as per its numbers in the various state assemblies (whose MLAs elect the MPs), and one more with the help of the BJD in Odisha. The latter will likely be Ashwini Vaishnaw, who has been named from Odisha, where he will need the ruling BJD’s support (like last time).
Word is that the 24 who have not been re-nominated will be fielded in the Lok Sabha elections.
Among the prominent ones who will not enter the Council of States are Union ministers Bhupender Yadav, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mansukh Mandaviya, Narayan Rane, Parshottam Rupala, V Muraleedharan and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, national media head Anil Baluni, national vice-president Saroj Pandey and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi.
Thus, the BJP plan is to have several new faces in both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha.
