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BJP confident of retaining strength in Upper House

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JUNE 9. The Bharatiya Janata Party has 48 members in the Rajya Sabha and, although, 16 have retired or are about to retire, it is confident that when elections are held it will be able to get 17 members elected. The problem, however, is that there are many senior party leaders, former ministers, and prominent ``newcomers'' who are all claimants for Rajya Sabha membership.

While it is certain that the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, who retired as a member from Karnataka, will be brought back, party leaders are confident about the re-election of the general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, and the former Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, whose terms end in July. In fact, all of them may once again be elected from the States they represented — Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan respectively.

The party's Central Election Committee meeting, yesterday, focussed on the Vidhan Parishad by-elections, as the Supreme Court has stayed the Rajya Sabha elections. The party is also waiting for the outcome of the petition in the Court relating to domicile status, a requirement the BJP had done away with through legislation. The selection of its Rajya Sabha candidates would have to be tailored accordingly.

There is now a view in the party that those who have lost the Lok Sabha elections should not be brought in by the backdoor to the Rajya Sabha. However, the party has to take into account that many of its senior leaders, including the former ministers holding important portfolios, for example, Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Ram Naik, have lost the Lok Sabha elections. Then there are others: Jagmohan, Shahnawaz Hussain, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Vijay Goel, Sahib Singh Verma, all ministers who were humbled at the hustings.

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