LUCKNOW: Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani is Samajwadi Party’s ‘surprise’ candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls along with party’s secretary general Prof Ram Gopal Yadav. Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani is the Group President of Reliance Industries and considered to be very close to the Ambani family. He is also a sports administrator. The two will file their nomination papers in the presence of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav at 11 am.Recently, Akhilesh Yadav, while responding to a media query on probable candidates for Rajya Sabha had said that this time there will be a surprise candidate from SP. On Wednesday morning the party declared Nathwani’s name as the second confirmed candidate of the party on SP’s official X account.A founding member of SP and party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s chief political strategist, Ram Gopal Yadav has been in the Rajya Sabha continuously since 2004. He has stood with Akhilesh through all the thick and thin and sided with him during the battle for supremacy within the Yadav clan in the run-up to 2017 assembly polls.As per the math in place, SP has INDIA bloc MLAs to see through two of its candidates in Rajya Sabha and will need some outside MLAs for any third candidate.As Group President at Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Dhanraj looks after Corporate Affairs, Finance, HR, and CSR. He oversees the operations of Reliance’s Jamnagar and Vadodara manufacturing divisions in Gujarat.Dhanraj is also a Director in other Reliance Group entities including Reliance New Energy Limited.
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He was unanimously elected as the President of Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) in 2022 succeeding Union Home Minister Amit Shah and also is also the President of Gujarat State Football Association.Dhanraj also happens to be the Vice-President of the administrative committee of the famous Dwarkadhis Temple and has directed the famous mega-musical show ‘Rajadhiraj: Love.’ based on the life journey of Lord Krishna.With a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business from Regent Business School (London), Dhanraj is an animal lover actively involved in wildlife conservation. He has been associated with campaigns for conservation of Gir lions.
