BJP drops all 8 Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha members, including Hardeep Puri – what it means | India News
Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma also are among those who have not been renominated.
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday named eight candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh, dropping all of its outgoing members from the state. Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Union minister of state for consumer affairs BL Verma also are among those who have not been renominated.The nominees, approved by the party’s Central Election Committee, are Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar. Voting for 10 UP seats is on October 16, and the last date for filing nominations is October 6.The outgoing BJP members, apart from Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma, are Arun Singh, Neeraj Shekhar, Geeta Shakya, Brijlal and Seema Dwivedi.The eighth seat belonged to former deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, who resigned on September 11 after being appointed lieutenant governor (LG) of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. His term was due to end on November 25, like those of the others.Meanwhile, the move has set the ball rolling for different interpretations ahead of the UP assembly polls and the long speculated Union cabinet reshuffle as no sitting BJP member from the state was retained. Puri’s name had been widely discussed for renomination, as had that of former Union minister Smriti Irani, who is also absent from the list.It is seen as a move motivated by the 2027 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, which the party will contest to form government for the third time in the state. The list, inevitably, appears to have names chosen to balance social, regional and caste combinations.The three candidates in the list are from the upper castes, three from Other Backward Classes (OBC) and two from Scheduled Castes. Ojha and Pandey, both Brahmins, are among the upper-caste picks. Dharampal Singh, a Lodhi, replaces outgoing MP BL Verma, who belongs to the same community. The list also spans Pal and Kurmi communities. Two women, Gangwar and Rawat, are among the nominees.The party seems to have leaned towards grassroots and organisational leaders rather than prominent national faces with the induction of Dharampal Singh, an animal husbandry minister in CM Yogi Adityanath‘s government.BJP is learnt to have zeroed in on at least 100 MLAs who are reportedly facing anti-incumbency at the ground level and a large number of them may be denied the ticket to contest the UP Assembly elections next year.Sources said this data has emerged after an on-ground assessment done by the party in 255 seats represented by BJP in the UP Assembly.A top UP BJP member confirmed to TOI that about 100 MLAs are on the radar following reports of lack of trust in them among voters. Friction with the organisational brass at the local level is also being accounted for while flagging these legislators, the senior member said. Sources said that feedback has also been taken from RSS vis-à-vis the candidacy of the sitting MLAs.
Cabinet reshuffle on cards?
The BJP’s decision not to renominate Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Union minister of state BL Verma has also fuelled speculation that a Union cabinet reshuffle could be on the cards.Under Article 75(5) of the Constitution, a minister who is not a member of either House of Parliament for six consecutive months must cease to hold office. With Puri and Verma’s Rajya Sabha terms ending on November 25, their omission from the UP list raises questions over whether the two will be given another route into Parliament or whether the BJP is preparing for a wider reshuffle. The party, however, has not indicated what the move means for either minister.
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Also beyond Uttar Pradesh, the BJP on Sunday named Dinesh Arya for the Uttarakhand seat and Trinamool Congress (TMC) defector Rukmini “Koel” Mallick for the West Bengal bypoll. In the March round of Rajya Sabha elections, it fielded its unit chiefs in Bihar and Odisha and retained one sitting MP in Odisha.
