The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on 7 March renominated eight retiring members, including seven ministers, for the 23 March Rajya Sabha Elections.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been nominated from Uttar Pradesh, while Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has been moved to Madhya Pradesh along with Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.
Health Minister JP Nadda has been renominated from Himachal Pradesh and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has been renominated from Bihar. Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala and Minister of State for Chemical and Fertilizer Mansukh Bhai Mandaviya have been renominated from Gujarat.
Besides these seven ministers, the Bharatiya Janata Party has renominated its General Secretary Bhupender Yadav from Rajasthan. Eight ministers of the Modi Cabinet are retiring from the Rajya Sabha.
The name of Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar did not figure in the first list of candidates announced by the BJP on 7 March.
He is expected to make a comeback from his home state Maharashtra. He is retiring as a member of the Upper House from Madhya Pradesh. Jaitley, who has been representing Gujarat in the Upper House, will re-enter from Uttar Pradesh as the party decided to renominate Rupala and Mandaviya from the state.
As per the numbers in the Gujarat Assembly, only two members from the BJP can be sent to the Rajya Sabha. So, the party opted to nominate Jaitley from Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP, on its own, can send back only one of the two retiring members – Prasad and Pradhan – from Bihar. It opted to renominate Prasad from the state and decided to shift Pradhan to Madhya Pradesh.
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