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Rajya Sabha candidates: Cong goes for new faces, BJP list has some new entrants

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8 years ago

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rajya sabha candidates: Cong goes for new faces, BJP list has some new entrants

The Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday announced names of their nominees for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls to be held on March 23.

All candidates are required to file nominations by today (Monday, March 12). The elections will be held on March 23.

There will be 59 vacancies in the Rajya Sabha in April, including 17 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 12 from the Congress party. Three nominated members – actor Rekha, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and social worker Anu Aga – will also retire then.

The BJP, which re-nominated its Union ministers to Rajya Sabha last week, announced a list of 18 candidates that include some fresh faces and some newly inducted veterans, with an eye on caste representation.

The Congress has not renominated any of its retiring members, except senior leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, from states where it is expected to win seats.

A prominent omission from the BJP list is that of Vinay Katiyar whose term is due to expire now. The founder member and president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s youth wing Bajrang Dal, he is one of the top BJP leaders who are facing charges in the Supreme Court for criminal conspiracy in Babri Masjid-Ayodhya Ram Temple issue. Recently he declared Muslims had no place in this country and that Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva temple.

The BJP list includes former Congress leader and former Maharashtra CM Narayan Rane, Rajasthan’s Kirodi Lal Meena who rejoined the BJP Sunday, and Rajeev Chandrashekhar who has been an independent MP in Rajya Sabha. Newly inducted to BJP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the chairman of Jupiter Capital is one of the largest investors in Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV news channel.

Anil Baluni, the national head of the BJP’s media wing, has been named from Uttarakhand, while Saroj Pandey, who is presently the general secretary of the party, has been named from Chhattisgarh. Kirori Lal Meena and Madan Lal Saini have been named to contest from Rajasthan.

The selection of Meena, whose equations with Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje are known to have been strained, is seen as an initiative against perceived anti-incumbency. With Sachin Pilot, a Gujjar, leading the Congress, the BJP is trying to consolidate the Meena community, said BJP sources.

Among the candidates from UP, prominent is Ashok Bajpai. He is one of the founder members of the Samajwadi Party and a seven-term MLA. Bajpai, a Brahmin leader from Hardoi, joined the BJP last year. Harnath Singh Yadav, a former MLC, too came from the SP (in 2007); his Yadav community is a strong support base of the SP.

Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, another UP candidate, is a prominent farmers’ leader. Kanta Kardam belongs to the Jatav community, a strong support base of the BSP. Another nomination from a backward group is Sakal Deep Rajbhar, state executive member from Balia, who belongs to the Rajbhar caste that constitutes a large population in eastern UP.

Prominent leaders like GVL Narshima Rao who is the party’s spokesperson and Anil Jain, National General Secretary of BJP will contest from Uttar Pradesh along with Sakal Deep Rajbhar and Harnath Singh Yadav.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has already filed nomination from Uttar Pradesh.

Ajay Pratap Singh and Kailash Soni will contest from Madhya Pradesh while Narayana Rane and V Muralidharan will represent Maharashtra. The decision to nominate V Muraleedharan, former Kerala state party chief, is seen as part of efforts to launch an aggressive mission in the state ruled by the Left. Muraleedharan’s nomination could please the Ezhavas, who represent a significant section of Hindus in Kerala.

Lt General DP Vats, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Sameer Uranv are contesting from Haryana, Karnataka and Jharkhand respectively.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare JP Nadda has filed his nomination papers as the BJP candidate for the Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will contest from Bihar.

The BJP will field Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot from Madhya Pradesh for another Rajya Sabha term. Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Mansukh L Mandaviya and Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Parshottam Rupala will contest election from Gujarat.

In Bihar, where six seats are up for grabs, BJP ally JD(U) has now named Mahendra Prasad and B N Singh. JD(U) spokesperson K C Tyagi might be considered later for the seat held by Sharad Yadav.

The RJD has nominated its national spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha and owner of a private medical college, Ashfaq Karim, while the Congress is eyeing the sixth seat with RJD support. Sources said the nominee could be former MP Akhilesh Singh.

Sources said the NDA might field a seventh candidate against the Congress as it has 21 votes to spare and hopes to get support of three independents. The NDA would still need 11 more and may place its hopes on engineering cross voting from Congress through former PCC president Ashok Choudhary, who joined JD(U) recently.

Congress

The 10 Congress candidates include senior journalist Kumar Ketkar from Maharashtra, and former Union minister Naranbhai Ratwa and the party’s familiar television face Amee Yajnik from Gujarat.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is also representing Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media case, will contest from West Bengal where the Trinamool Congress has already announced its support for his candidature.

The other candidates are former Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu from Jharkhand, former state minister Rajmani Patel from Madhya Pradesh and former MP Porika Balram Naik from Telangana. The Congress has little chance of getting its nominee elected from Telangana.

In Jharkhand, the JMM has already announced its decision to support the Congress nominee.

From Karnataka, the Congress has nominated L Hanumanthaiah, Syed Naseer Hussain and GC Chandrasekhar.

Hanumanthaiah, vice president of Karnataka Congress, is a Dalit writer and poet. He belongs to the Vokkaliga community. Hussain is a Congress spokesperson. The Congress, which has 120 MLAs, can send at least two MPs with 45 votes each.

With Congress fielding a Vokkaliga leader, the JD(S) will have the difficult choice of backing its own candidate or voting for a Vokkaliga, its main support base. The Congress had earlier turned down JD(S)’s request to back its candidate, businessman BM Farook. While the JD(S) is short by 15 votes, the Congress too is short of some votes for the third MP. The party, however, expects to get the support of seven JD(S) rebels and some independents and others.

The Congress denied a renomination to former Union minister K Rahman Khan from Karnataka, Satyavrat Chaturvedi from MP, Rajani Patil and Rajeev Shukla from Maharashtra and former state president Pradeep Kumar Balmuchu from Jharkhand.

For the two seats in Gujarat, supporters of state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and Shaktisinh Gohil were lobbying hard. Former union minister Subodh Kant Sahay, former minister Rajendra Singh and Sahu were in the race from Jharkhand.

Besides Chaturvedi, senior leaders such as Suresh Pachauri, former Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza and State Congress president Arun Yadav were in contention for the seat in MP. Chaturvedi, who is retiring, reportedly had the backing of Jyotiraditya Scindia.

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Yogi Adityanath’s do namoone remark sparks Akhilesh Yadav’s jab on BJP infighting

Yogi Adityanath’s ‘do namoone’ comment in the UP Assembly has been countered by Akhilesh Yadav, who termed it a confession of BJP’s internal power struggle.

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1 day ago

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December 22, 2025

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Yogi Adityanath

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s recent “do namoone” comment in the state Assembly has triggered a sharp political exchange, with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav turning the remark into an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s alleged internal discord.

The comment was made during a heated Assembly discussion on allegations of codeine cough syrup smuggling in Uttar Pradesh. Opposition members had accused the state government of inaction, claiming that timely steps could have saved the lives of several children. Rejecting the allegation outright, Adityanath said that no child in the state had died due to consumption of the cough syrup.

While responding to the opposition benches, the Chief Minister made an indirect jibe, saying there were “two namoone”, one in Delhi and one in Lucknow. Without naming anyone, he added that one of them leaves the country whenever there is a national debate, and suggested that a similar pattern applied to the Samajwadi Party leadership. The remark was widely interpreted as being aimed at Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and current Lok Sabha MP

Akhilesh Yadav calls remark a ‘confession’

Akhilesh Yadav responded swiftly on social media, calling Adityanath’s statement a “confession” that exposed an alleged power struggle within the BJP. He said that those holding constitutional posts should maintain decorum and accused the ruling party of bringing its internal disputes into the public domain. Yadav posted his response shortly after the Chief Minister shared a video clip of the Assembly remarks online.

The Samajwadi Party has, on several occasions, claimed that there is a tussle between the Uttar Pradesh government and the BJP’s central leadership. Party leaders have cited the appointment of deputy chief ministers and certain bureaucratic decisions as evidence of attempts to curtail the Chief Minister’s authority.

Adityanath has consistently dismissed these claims, maintaining that he holds the post because of the party’s trust in him. The latest exchange has once again brought the narrative of BJP infighting into political focus, even as both sides continue to trade barbs ahead of key electoral contests

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Sonia Gandhi calls weakening of MGNREGA a collective moral failure, targets Centre in op-ed

Sonia Gandhi has accused the Centre of weakening MGNREGA, calling it a collective moral failure with serious consequences for crores of working people.

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1 day ago

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December 22, 2025

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Sonia Gandhi

Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has sharply criticised the Central government over what she described as the steady dismantling of rights-based legislation, with a particular focus on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

In a recent opinion article published in a leading English daily, Sonia Gandhi argued that MGNREGA was envisioned as more than a welfare measure. She said the rural employment scheme gave legal backing to the constitutional right to work and was rooted in Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of Sarvodaya, or welfare for all.

Calling its weakening a serious failure, she wrote that the decline of MGNREGA represents a “collective moral failure” that will have lasting financial and human consequences for crores of working people across India. She stressed that safeguarding such rights-based frameworks is crucial at a time when, according to her, multiple protections are under strain.

Concerns raised over education, environment and land laws

Sonia Gandhi also flagged concerns beyond rural employment. Referring to education policy, she claimed that the Right to Education has been undermined following the National Education Policy 2020, alleging that it has led to the closure of around one lakh primary schools across the country.

On environmental and land-related legislation, she stated that the Forest Rights Act, 2006, was weakened through the Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022. According to her, these changes removed the role of the gram sabha in decisions related to the diversion of forest land.

She further alleged that the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has been significantly diluted, while adding that the National Green Tribunal has seen its authority reduced over the years.

Warning on agriculture and food security laws

Touching upon agriculture reforms, Sonia Gandhi referred to the now-repealed three farm laws, claiming they were an attempt to deny farmers the right to a minimum support price. She also cautioned that the National Food Security Act, 2013, could face similar threats in the future.

Reiterating her central argument, she urged unity to protect statutory rights, stating that the erosion of such laws has implications that extend well beyond policy, affecting livelihoods and dignity on the ground.

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Renaming MGNREGA removes core spirit of rural employment law, says Shashi Tharoor

Published

4 days ago

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December 19, 2025

By

Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has strongly criticised the renaming of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), saying the move strips the rural employment programme of its core essence. His remarks came after Parliament cleared the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, also referred to as the VB-G RAM G Bill.

Speaking to media, Tharoor said the decision to remove Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme “takes out the heart” of the rural employment programme that has been in place for years. He noted that the identity and philosophy associated with Mahatma Gandhi were central to the original law.

Tharoor also objected to the way the new name was framed, arguing that it unnecessarily combined multiple languages. He pointed out that the Constitution envisages the use of one language in legislation, while the Bill’s title mixes English and Hindi terms such as “Guarantee”, “Rozgar” and “Ajeevika”, along with the conjunction “and”.

‘Disrespect to both names’

The Congress leader said that inserting the word “Ram” while dropping Mahatma Gandhi’s name amounted to disrespecting both. Referring to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas, Tharoor said that for Gandhi, the concepts of Gram Swaraj and Ram Rajya were inseparable, and removing his name from a rural employment law went against that vision.

He added that the name of Lord Ram could be used in many contexts, but questioned the rationale behind excluding Mahatma Gandhi from a programme closely linked to his philosophy of village self-rule.

Protests over passage of the Bill

The VB-G RAM G Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 18 and cleared by the Rajya Sabha in the early hours of December 19 amid protests from Opposition members. Several MPs opposed the manner in which the legislation was pushed through, with scenes of sloganeering and tearing of papers in the House.

Outside Parliament, members of the Trinamool Congress staged a sit-in protest near Samvidhan Sadan against the passage of the Bill. Congress also announced nationwide protests earlier this week, accusing the government of weakening rights-based welfare schemes.

Despite opposition criticism, the government has maintained that the new law will strengthen rural employment and livelihood security. The Bill raises the guaranteed employment from 100 days to 125 days per rural household and outlines a 60:40 cost-sharing formula between the Centre and states, with a higher central share for northeastern, Himalayan states and certain Union Territories.

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