Rajya Sabha route possibility for union ministers who lost Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi: Some key faces of the last Modi Cabinet, who did not make it to Lok Sabha this term, could soon be seen in Rajya Sabha.

With several Parliamentarians from the Upper House contesting the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the BJP now has as many as six vacancies there.

With Piyush Goyal moving to the Lok Sabha, the party will also have to look for a new leader of the Upper House.  Leaders in the party said that BJP president J P Nadda, whose tenure is up this month, will take over the mantle.

Some of the prominent faces that lost these elections include union ministers Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda and RK Singh. They held the Cabinet portfolios of women and child development, tribal affairs and power, respectively.

Sources in the BJP said that the party intends to send these politicians to the Rajya Sabha, though it remains to be seen if they will be part of the government if an extension ever happens.  

“The party now has vacancies in several states – Sarbananda Sonowal in Assam, Vivek Thakur from Bihar, Jyotiraditya Scindia from Madhya Pradesh, and Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra— as all are now in the Lok Sabha," a BJP leader said, adding that the three former union ministers who lost the Lok Sabha elections could be nominated in three of these vacant Rajya Sabha seats. 

Irani has been in the Rajya Sabha before, in the 2014 term, when she unsuccessfully contested from Amethi, a seat she won in 2019. This term, Singh, who led several changes in the power sector in his last stint, lost from Arrah to CPIML candidate Sudama Prasad. Munda, one of the party’s prominent tribal faces, lost from the Khunti seat to Congress’s Kalicharan Munda. 

Additionally, among the six faces that have left the Rajya Sabha is Piyush Goyal. So, in addition to looking for a Speaker, the party will also have to look for a Leader of the Upper House. Goyal contested from the Mumbai North seat and won. Sources in the BJP said that party president J P Nadda, who is a Rajya Sabha member, will take over this role. 

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