Rajya Sabha to miss many known faces from next month

Many prominent politicians will be missing from Rajya Sabha from next month after the results of Upper House polls will be announced on March 26 and they retire from the House without a re-nomination.

They include former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, former Governor and former treasurer of AICC for decades Motilal Vora, Madhusudan Mistry, Hussain Dalwai, former Union Minister Kumari Selja, Viplovee Thakur (all Congress), Majid Memon (NCP), Videocon Chairman Rajkumar Dhoot (Shiv Sena), former Union Ministers Vijay Goel and CP Thakur (BJP). Mistry, a Rahul Gandhi pick was fielded against BJP's PM face Narendra Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Vadodara in Gujarat and had served as AICC general secretary in-charge of key states like Uttar Pradesh.

In some cases son has replaced father like Vivek Thakur, son of BJP leader C P Thakur in Bihar while in some case sonrise has depended on father’s performance as in the case Congress Haryana candidate Deepender Hooda, son of two-time Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who led the party from the front in the recently concluded state polls and lifted the party’s numbers of morale.

Hooda was given Rajya Sabha nomination ignoring re-nomination claim of former Union Minister Kumari Selja, who retires from Rajya Sabha on April 9.

With CPI-M having said no to third time re-nomination for party Secretary General Sitaram Yechury from West Bengal with the help of Congress, Rajya Sabha will miss the oratorial skills of the Left leader, who retired from the Upper House in 2017. CPI-M has no member from Rajya Sabha this time after the expulsion from party of its leader Ritabrata Banerjee , the party’s lone member in RS by then. West Bengal unit of CPI-M was keen for sending Yechury to the Rajya Sabha with the help of Congress but the idea did not find favour with the polit buro.

Many of the key faces in the Rajya Sabha like NCP boss Sharad Pawar, Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh, Union Minister Ramadas Athavale, Supreme Court lawyer KTS Tulsi, Digvijay Singh, Senior Group of President of Reliance Industries Limited Parimal Nathwani, TRS leader K Keshav Rao will, however, stage a come back.

Among the new comers prominent are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Udayanraj Bhonslse and Priyanka Chaturvedi erstwhile Congress leaders, who will now enter the Rajya Sabha from parties ideological poles apart--BJP and Shiv Sena. Congress is now even partner in an alliance government led by Sena. Bhubaneshwar Kalita, who was in past a member of Rajya Sabha from Congress, will also enter Upper House this time on a BJP ticket after having quit his parent party last year opposing the party’s stand on abrogation of Article 370.

Patriarch from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha Shibu Soren also enters Rajya Sabha this time from Jharkhand. Maharashtra will be able to send two women members in Rajya Sabha Priyanka Chaturvedi (Shiv Sena) and Fauzia Khan (NCP)

Politicians have chosen not to go for contests in most states, where the numbers are crystal clear and such the names of majority of newly-elects will be clear on March 18 itself, when the last date of nomination draws to a close.

All seven candidates in Maharashtra, two are of BJP and NCP and one each from the Congress and Shiv Sena, all the four BJD candidates in Odisha, all five candidates in Bihar-two each from BJP and RJD and one from JDU, all three candidates in Assam—one from BJP, one from BJP backed BPF and one of Opposition will be elected unopposed.

Candidates of all hues

Besides hard-nosed, the profile of Rajya Sabha entrants this time has varied hues---from a journalist and face of anti CAA protest in Assam Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, ace Supreme Court lawyer K T S Tulsi, a descendant of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj---Udayanraje Bhosale, physician turned Mayor Bhagwat Karad (both from BJP in Mahrashtra), a professor Sumer Solanki (BJP candidate in Madhya Pradesh). There is also a political greenhorn Amarendra Dhari Singh from RJD in Patna while Parimal Nathwani is a corporate.