Rajya Sabha Nominations: Sonia Gandhi Shifting from Lok Sabha, JP Nadda from HP to Gujarat

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Feb 14:  The former Congress president Sonia Gandhi is shifting to the Rajya Sabha relinquishing her Lok Sabha seat Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh presumably for her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra after 25 years in the lower house.

Mrs Gandhi on Wednesday filed her nominations for the upper house from Rajasthan where the Congress has enough numbers to ensure her elections. The seat was so far held by the former prime minister Manmohan Singh who may be going for retirement after a celebrated five-decade of political career.

The 77-year old Mrs Gandhi though is only repositioning herself, leaves behind an impeccable electoral record that is all the more remarkable given her non-Indian origin and the circumstances of her entry to the country’s volatile political landscape.

Sonia Gandhi contested her first election from the party stronghold of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and from Karnataka’s Bellary. She won both. That was in 1999, eight years after her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, and she was persuaded to help rescue the party. In 2004 she had shifted to the Congress’ second UP stronghold – Raebareli.

The Congress leader has been ever-present since 1999, serving as a steadying and guiding force for her party, particularly through the political and parliamentary turbulence of the past decade. She held Raebareli since 2004, never polling below 55 per cent. She won the seat even in 2014 and 2019, when the Congress was routed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, and held it even when Rahul Gandhi lost Amethi. And leaves (very) big shoes to fill for whomever the Congress fields from here in the April/May election.

Who that will be is unclear but there is buzz one Gandhi will be replaced by another, and that it will not be Rahul. She is likely to be replaced in Raebareli by her daughter whose resemblance to her grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has been noted – is being readied for her long-awaited electoral debut.

Among other Rajya Sabha nominations, three key leaders from the BJP and its ally Shiv Sena (Shinde) faction have been nominated by the parties in their latest lists for the Rajya Sabha elections. While the BJP has shifted its president, JP Nadda, from Himachal Pradesh to Gujarat and nominated former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan from his home state, and Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L. Murugan from Odisha and Madhya Pradesh respectively, the Shiv Sena has nominated Milind Deora from Maharashtra.

Two of these candidates – Mr Chavan and Mr Deora – are recent entrants in their respective parties from the Congress. Mr Nadda is a Rajya Sabha member from Himachal Pradesh but will contest from Gujarat this time because the BJP does not have the number of MLAs needed to win the lone seat from the Congress-ruled hill state.

Former Congress leader Ashok Chavan joined the BJP on Tuesday, just a day after quitting the party he had been a part of for 38 years. Former Union Minister Milind Deora had left the Congress on January 14, ending his family’s 55-year relationship with the party. He had joined the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena the same day.

The elections for 56 Rajya Sabha seats from 15 states will be held on February 27. The highest number of 10 seats are from Uttar Pradesh.

The nomination of Mr Murugan and Mr Vaishnaw makes them the only two exceptions to the BJP high command’s decision that Union Ministers completing their terms in the Rajya Sabha must now fight the Lok Sabha polls. That list included Ministers Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Bhupendra Yadav, and Dharmendra Pradhan.

Interestingly, in the case of Mr Vaishnaw his candidature has received support from the local ruling party the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) as well, in a repeat from 2019. Given that the BJD could have secured a third seat form Odisha, this move is politically intriguing; in a statement, the party said its decision was meant to benefit Odisha in the fields of railways and information technology, both portfolios held by Mr Vaishnaw.

The move has triggered speculation that it may soften the Odisha BJP’s confrontational stance towards the BJD-led government headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, especially with simultaneous State and general elections on the horizon. The Congress, now diminished to a non-entity in the State, has started pushing a narrative that the BJD and BJP are two sides of the same coin.

From Gujarat, apart from Mr Nadda, the BJP has also fielded diamond baron Govindbhai Dholakia, owner of Sri Krishna Exports, one of the largest diamond companies in Surat. He is also a philanthropist and has built over 250 Hanuman temples in the tribal region of Dangs in southern Gujarat. Local media reports say that he had also given an individual donation of ₹11 crores for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The other two candidates picked by the BJP from Gujarat are Jaswantsinh Parmar, a doctor from Godhra, and Mayank Nayak from Patan in north Gujarat. Both are considered other backward class (OBC) representatives, with Mr Nayak being the former chairman of the Gujarat BJP’s OBC Morcha.

From Maharashtra, Mr Chavan’s nomination is not surprising as it was considered part of the deal he made when he joined the BJP. Another nominee from the State is Medha Kulkarni, a prominent Brahmin face of the party in Pune who is currently serving as the vice president of the BJP women’s wing. The third nominee is Ajeet Gopchade, who hails from Marathwada’s Nanded district and belongs to the Lingayat community.

In addition to Mr Murugan, the other three nominees from M.P. reflect the BJP’s strategy of balancing various community groups ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Umesh Nath Maharaj, a Dalit, is a prominent religious leader and the head priest (mahamandaleshwar) of Ujjain’s Valmiki Ashram. He is also considered close to the top leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP. Maya Naroliya is president of the M.P. BJP’s Mahila Morcha and hails from the OBC community, while Bansilal Gurjar, who hails from Mandsaur, is currently the national vice-president of the BJP’s Kisan Morcha and also belongs to the OBC block.