View of the Rajya Sabha
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: Former Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, senior lawyer Ujjwal Nikam, historian Dr Meenakshi Jain, and Kerala BJP leader who lost both his legs in a political attack, C Sadanandan Master, have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
With this, all 12 seats in the nominated category have been filled while four seats from Jammu and Kashmir and one seat from Haryana remain vacant. In a House of 240, the BJP-led NDA has the support of 135 MPs, including all 12 nominated MPs who generally support the government, and an independent.
The notification about the nomination of four members to the Rajya Sabha was issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Saturday night.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on ‘X’ that Shringhla's “unique” will greatly enrich Parliamentary proceedings while he emphasised that Nikam has always worked to strengthen Constitutional values and ensure common citizens are always treated with dignity.
On Jain, he said she distinguished herself as a scholar, researcher and historian and her work in the fields of education, literature, history and political science have enriched academic discourse significantly.
Modi said the life of Sadanandan Master, a teacher-turned-politician, is the “epitome of courage and refusal to bow to injustice” and “violence and intimidation could not deter his spirit towards national development”. His nomination to the Rajya Sabha also comes a year ahead of Kerala elections.
Shringla has been brought into the Rajya Sabha for his expertise in foreign affairs. A former US Ambassador before becoming Foreign Secretary, Shringla has also been the Chief Coordinator for India’s G20 Presidency in 2023 and was part of India’s recent global outreach after the Pahalgam terror attack.
Ahead of Lok Sabha elections last year, there were speculations that Shringla would take a political plunge and become BJP’s candidate in West Bengal’s Darjeeling. In late 2023 and early 2024, he had been attending several programmes in the seat through his ‘Darjeeling Welfare Society’.
Nikam, known for being the government prosecutor in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2016, has contested the Lok Sabha polls as a BJP candidate but was defeated by Congress’ Varsha Gaikwad in the Mumbai North seat.
He had also been the prosecutor in murder cases of Gulshan Kumar and Pramod Mahajan, as well as in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and the 2003 Gateway of India bombing cases.
Dr Jain, a former Associate Professor of Delhi’s Gargi College and chosen for Padma Shri in 2020, is a well-known political scientist. The daughter of former Times of India Editor Girilal Jain, she was nominated to the Indian Council of Historical Research in 2014 by the Narendra Modi government.
Sadanandan, a teacher, had contested elections for BJP in Kerala and lost both his legs in an attack orchestrated by CPI(M) workers in 1994. He is associated with the Bharatiya Vichara Kendram, a rightwing think tank run by senior Sangh leaders.
The appointment of the new nominated MPs with a tenure of six years comes just a week ahead of the start of Monsoon Session of Parliament. These MPs can join a party within six months of their nomination.
Among the present eight nominated MPs, Gulam Ali (who has term till September 2028) and Satnam Singh Sandhu (January 2030) have joined the BJP. One nominated seat will become vacant in March next year when Justice (retired) Ranjan Gogoi’s term ends.
The other nominated members are: Veerendra Heggade, Ilaiyaraja, Vijayendra Prasad, PT Usha (term till July 2028), and Sudha Murty (term till March 2030).