Rajya Sabha poll: Amid suspense, Nitish Kumar may renominate Harivansh

Suspense continues on the names of who all will be nominated from Bihar for the Rajya Sabha elections, slated for March 26.

Altogether five RS berths from this State will fall vacant after the term of five NDA MPs, including two from the BJP and three from the JD (U), ends next month.

The MPs from the Janata Dal (United), whose term ends in April, include Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh, Ramnath Thakur and Kahkasan Parveen. The BJP MPs retiring next month include former Union Health Minister Dr CP Thakur and RK Sinha (the latter has been associated with Sangh for the last five decades).

At least 42 first preferential votes of MLAs are required to win a Rajya Sabha seat. But with the depleted strength in the Assembly, the JD (U) can wrest maximum two seats, while BJP one. The remaining two seats could go to the RJD which is the largest party in the Assembly with 80 MLAs and enjoys the support of Congress’ 26 legislators.

Since journalist-turned-politician Harivansh is the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Nitish would not like to lose the prestigious post assigned to his party leader, who was earlier Editor of a popular Hindi daily ‘Prabhat Khabar’ before becoming a member of the Upper House. “Chances are Harivansh Ji could be re-nominated,” said a ruling party source.

It will be Hobson’s choice for Nitish for the second seat where he could not overlook the candidature of an EBC (extremely backward caste) candidate Ramnath Thakur, whose integrity and competence cannot be questioned. Son of former Chief Minister and veteran Socialist Karpoori Thakur, Ramnath maintains a very low profile. However, there are other claimants too from the JD (U), including the party general secretary KC Tyagi, a former close aide of Sharad Yadav, who stood by Nitish during turbulent times.

The BJP too can’t win more than one seat and is, therefore, in a dilemma whom to drop and whom to re-nominate. Since the last date of nomination is March 13, the suspense will be eventually over only next week.