 "M J Akbar")
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today released its second list of Rajya Sabha candidates. It has nominated Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu from Andhra Pradesh and M J Akbar from Madhya Pradesh.
Prabhu was earlier an MP from Haryana and will be elected from Andhra Pradesh with the support of BJP ally Telugu Desam Party, while Akbar was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand.
Others in the second list of six names are party vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and ophthalmologist Dr Vikas Mahatme – both nominated from Maharashtra, Shiv Pratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh and Mahesh Poddar nominated from Jharkhand.
Mahatme, conferred with the Padma Shri in 2010, runs charitable eye hospitals in Mumbai and Nagpur and is the leader of the Dhangar or shepherd community. The community, on the promise that it will be included in the Scheduled Tribes list, had supported the BJP in the Maharashtra assembly polls of 2014.
Recently, the Devendra Fadnavis government announced that it will celebrate the birth anniversary of 18th century ruler Ahilyabai Holkar, who hailed from the dhangar community, each year on May 31. The government, however, is yet to fulfill the promise on giving the community ST status.
Sahasrabuddhe, a national vice president of the BJP, is a Sangh Parivar ideologue. He has been the head of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a Mumbai based leadership training institute, inspired by nationalistic thought. Shukla has been a minister in various BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and his nomination is yet another effort by the BJP to reach out to the sizeable Brahmin community of Uttar Pradesh. The state is due for elections in early 2017. Poddar has been a treasurer of BJP’s Jharkhand unit.
Prabhu was earlier an MP from Haryana and will be elected from Andhra Pradesh with the support of BJP ally Telugu Desam Party, while Akbar was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand.
Others in the second list of six names are party vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and ophthalmologist Dr Vikas Mahatme – both nominated from Maharashtra, Shiv Pratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh and Mahesh Poddar nominated from Jharkhand.
Mahatme, conferred with the Padma Shri in 2010, runs charitable eye hospitals in Mumbai and Nagpur and is the leader of the Dhangar or shepherd community. The community, on the promise that it will be included in the Scheduled Tribes list, had supported the BJP in the Maharashtra assembly polls of 2014.
Recently, the Devendra Fadnavis government announced that it will celebrate the birth anniversary of 18th century ruler Ahilyabai Holkar, who hailed from the dhangar community, each year on May 31. The government, however, is yet to fulfill the promise on giving the community ST status.
Sahasrabuddhe, a national vice president of the BJP, is a Sangh Parivar ideologue. He has been the head of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a Mumbai based leadership training institute, inspired by nationalistic thought. Shukla has been a minister in various BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and his nomination is yet another effort by the BJP to reach out to the sizeable Brahmin community of Uttar Pradesh. The state is due for elections in early 2017. Poddar has been a treasurer of BJP’s Jharkhand unit.
The BJP had released a list of 12 Rajya Sabha candidates on Sunday. That list had Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, party vice president Om Prakash Mathur, Harsh Vardhan Singh of Dungarpur royal family and party leader Ram Kumar Verma nominated from Rajasthan. Naidu had represented Karnataka in his outgoing stint in the Rajya Sabha.
Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh has been re-nominated from Haryana, Power Minister Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Minorities Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi from Jharkhand. Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, earlier an MP from Andhra Pradesh, will now represent Karnataka.
Others in the list released on Sunday were national vice president Purushottam Rupala from Gujarat, sitting MP Anil Madhav Dave from Madhya Pradesh, former minister Ramvichar Netam from Chhattisgarh and former Bihar BJP state president Gopal Narayan Singh from Bihar.
The surprise omission in the list, if at all, is that of party General Secretary Ram Madhav who has consistently denied reports that the party was nominating him to the Upper House. According to party sources, Madhav opted to continue to devote time to organizational work. The biennial elections to 58 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on June 11. The last date for filing of nominations is May 31.
