BJP Announces 22 Candidates for Rajya Sabha Polls; to Support 2 Independents

The last-minute entry of two media barons which are enjoying the support of the BJP has created hurdles for the Congress to get all its candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha while at the same time, the ruling party has kept caste equations in mind in distributing its tickets for the Rajya Sabha polls. The ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) has announced 22 candidates for the RS elections, of whom more than half are SCs and OBCs.

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

The saffron party has fielded eight candidates from Uttar Pradesh, three each from Karnataka and Maharashtra, two each from Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, and one each from Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand. It will support two independent candidates – Kartikeya Sharma from Haryana, and Subhash Chandra from Rajasthan. In both states, the BJP party has additional votes.

JJP (Jannayak Janata Party), a BJP ally in Haryana, has also announced its support for Kartikeya Sharma, who is expected to get nine additional votes from the BJP, 10 from JJP, and then there are eight independents who are supporting the JJP-BJP government in the state. In the same manner, there are 30 additional votes for the BJP in Rajasthan, where a candidate needs 41 votes to get elected to the Upper house of Parliament.

The election for 57 Rajya Sabha seats in various states will be conducted on June 10.