Seven Union Ministers are in the race for 17/18 Rajya Sabha seats that the BJP is likely to win during the ensuing biennial polls due on June 11. The term of these seven ministers including one belonging to the TDP is expiring in July.
Parliamentary affairs & urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu, railway minister Suresh Prabhu, coal & power minister Piyush Goyal, rural development minister Birender Singh, commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and minister of state for parliamentary affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi along with Y S Chowdhary, minister of state for science & technology of the TDP, are among the 57 members retiring.
The BJP has not yet announced it candidates for the Rajya Sabha seats though the party president Amit Shah has been authorised by the Parliamentary Board at its meeting on May 19 to select party candidates for Rajya Sabha seats . Highly placed sources in the BJP say that Suresh Prabhu and Piyush Goyal are set to be re-nominated from Maharashtra. Prabhu had earlier been brought from Haryana. But now that the BJP will win three of the six Rajya Sabha seats, Prabhu may be brought from his home state. Piyush Goyal has been a star performer in the ministry and set to be renominated.
Vinay Sahastrebuddhe is in the race for the third seat. M Venkaiah Naidu is also to be re-nominated from Karnataka, the state he represented earlier. Birender Singh is to be re-nominated from Haryana as the BJP can win one seat on its own and second seat with the help of INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala who is currently lodged in jail. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is also to be re-nominated from Uttar Pradesh where the BJP is set to win one seat and he is the only Muslim face of the party in UP.
There is some uncertainty in the case of commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman as the BJP has only four MLAs in Andhra Pradesh assembly. It is now up to Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu to give an extra seat to the BJP to ensure her return from Andhra Pradesh. Otherwise, the BJP will have to bring her from some other state. There are reports that Naidu is very unhappy with the Centre as the state has not been given extra funds for the development of new capital of the state as promised in the agreement. Sources say that Naidu will give the Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP if asked for by Central leadership. His confidante Y S Chowdhary is sure to get re-nomination.
