Rajya Sabha elections have parties in a fix

With the Rajya Sabha going to polls on March 26 to elect 59 new members, political parties are busy deciding their candidates.

At least three UPA ministers "" Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, Minister of State in the PMO, Prithviraj Chavan, and Personnel Minister Suresh Pachauri are likely to get another term even as the number of seats in the UPA's bag has come down by at least four.

The BJP will hold a meeting of its Central Election Committee (CEC) tomorrow to announce its nominees. The party has gained a couple of seats after a spate of wins in recent state elections but fierce factionalism has meant that it is still not sure who will be the candidates.

For example, the party has one seat out of seven in Maharashtra but the state unit is neatly divided with three groups rooting for three different candidates ""BJP National Spokpesperson Prakash Javadekar, Rekha Mahajan, wife of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, and businessman Piyush Goel, son of former BJP treasurer Ved Prakash Goel.

The Congress is likely to repeat Chavan and Deora. The NCP has more or less zeroed in on Professor Waghmare, the vice-chancellor of Marathwada University, and party treasurer YP Trivedi, although there are reports that businessman Vijay Mallya may have a chance.

The Shiv Sena has already announced that it will repeat businessman Raj Kumar Dhoot. A new face, Bharat Raut, editor of Maharashtra Times, is the other name.

In Bihar, former deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, NK Singh, and former health minister CP Thakur are definite names from the NDA camp. Company Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta is expected to again contest on the lone RJD seat. The jury is still out on Syed Shahabuddin and Jagannath Mishra.

The BJP finds itself in a fix in Rajasthan, where Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is pushing for former external affairs minister Natwar Singh while her party is less than enthusiastic.

In Gujarat, dissident-in-chief Keshubhai Patel's term is ending but he is lobbying for a term for his son. Chief Minister Narendra Modi appears keen on journalist Swapan Dasgupta but BJP President Rajnath Singh is not budging on this. Former BJP MP Balbir Punj might contest from Madhya Pradesh,

While all parties have more or less narrowed down their choices to two or three, the Congress is contemplating how to adjust all its ministers considering that it has fewer seats this time. Some junior ministers have been told that "the party needs them", which is a code for the fact that it does not have the numbers to repeat them.