Besides ministers, the party has also chosen senior party functionaries such as party national vice-president Om Prakash Mathur for the Upper House. It is considered a signal to the Brahmin community in the state that the BJP is anxious about their votes after appointing a non-Yadav, Keshav Prasad Maurya as state unit president.
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“In Jharkhand, each candidate will require 28 votes to win, the BJP with 47 votes is in a position to secure one seat without any trouble, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has been nominated for that seat”. Based on the strength in the State Assembly, the ruling Congress can easily win two seats, BJP one seat and the JD(S) can get one seat with the support of five or six independent MLAs. However, the Bihar poll debacle is being seen as the reason for his omission from the list. “They were delayed by about two hours”, BJP sources said.
The tenure of Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is also coming to an end, and he is expected to be nominated again.
However, party sources said this “insider-outsider” factor might not have prompted the BJP to change its decision because even Nirmala is not from Karnataka.
Prabhu, who entered the upper house last time from Haryana, has now been nominated from Andhra Pradesh.
Meanwhile, JD(S) has made a decision to nominate B M Farooq, a real estate developer, to Rajya Sabha. The biennial polls are being held for 57 seats and 14 BJP members are retiring.
Naidu, Mathur, Harsh Vardhan Singh and Verma have been nominated from Rajasthan while Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh has been re-nominated from Haryana.
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The Union minister, who is at present a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, said: “Thanks to people of Karnataka and party’s state unit for their affection (and) support all these years”.
