BJP may field 18-20 senior Rajya Sabha Mps in LS Polls
Narayan Rane, Bhupendra Yadav, Pradhan in the List
More
than a dozen senior leaders including several Union Ministers may be
fielded by the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls in May next year. As
part of its electoral strategy, the BJP high command has identified
20 of 93 senior RS Mps who can be fielded for Lok Sabha polls. While
the names of Dharmendra Pradhan (Education), Bhupendra Yadav (Labour
and Environment & Forest), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Steel) and Narayan Rane
(MSMEs) were doing the rounds for the past sometime, it transpires
that those who are completing their second term in Rajya Sabha must
contest Lok Sabha polls.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is an old hand in the party since 2008 and may be fielded from Tamil Nadu. But reports about External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Ashwini Vaishnaw (Railways) being fielded for Lok Sabha are not true as they are in their first term only.
Bhupendra Yadav hails from Haryana and is a Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan. If he is fielded from Mahendragarh in Haryana, there will be problems for sitting MP & Minister Rao Inderjit Singh from the same constituency. This is not the first time that the BJP is conducting such an exercise. In 2014, it fielded Arun Jaitley from Amritsar while in 2019, it fielded sitting Union Minister Hardeep Puri from the same constituency. It is still not clear whether Leader of the House and Commerce & Industry minister Piyush Goyal will be fielded or not. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Purushottam Rupala (Animal Husbandry & Fisheries) hail from Gujarat and decision may be taken later. The BJP has been winning all 26 Lok Sabha seats consecutively for two terms. Other senior Rajya Sabha MPs who can be fielded include Dr K Laxman, Sushil Kumar Modi.
