The Hindu : National : Dr. Joshi, Judev in BJP list

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 11, 2004

National

National

Dr. Joshi, Judev in BJP list

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JUNE 10. The Vice-Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and till now a Congress member, Najma Heptullah, was today selected by the Bharatiya Janata Party as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. The Congress had given Ms. Heptullah the membership of the Upper House for four full terms, that is 24 years, and she has been Vice-Chairman of the Upper House for over a decade.

This has not come as a surprise although after the BJP's defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and the pressure on the party leadership to accommodate its own defeated former Ministers, some party members were opposed to giving a Rajya Sabha seat to Ms. Heptullah. Her crossing over to the BJP was all but stitched up before the elections, but she was not willing to resign from the Congress and give up her position. In fact, today she made her farewell speech in the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP's central election committee, which met here this evening for three hours, finalised 18 names for the Rajya Sabha although some senior party leaders say that it may be able to get only 15 to 17 persons elected against 16 party MPs who have retired or about to retire from the Upper House.

Prominent among those who have been given the green signal are: the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, for a seat from Karnataka; the former Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, from Uttar Pradesh; the general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, from Maharashtra; the former External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, from Jharkhand; the former Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, from Rajasthan; and Jai Narayan Nishad, a former Rashtriya Janata Dal member who joined the BJP just before the elections, has been given the clearance for a seat from Bihar.

One view in the party that those who contested the Lok Sabha and were defeated should be kept out for now was not the view that won the day. Among those who have been given the ticket are several defeated Ministers, including Mr. Sinha and Dr. Joshi.

Thirunavukkarasar from

Madhya Pradesh

A surprise name is that of Lalit Suri, industrialist, who is the party's candidate from Orissa, the other being Rudra Narayan Pani. The party has cleared the names of four candidates from Madhya Pradesh: S. Thirunavukkarasar, Pyarelal Khandelwal, Narayan Singh Kesri and Laxmi Narayan Sharma (the last for a byelection). From Rajasthan, besides Ms. Heptulla and Mr. Jaswant Singh, the other two names are Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi, a State leader, and Gyan Prakash Pilania for a byelection.

From Chhattisgarh, the party candidate will be Dilip Singh Judev. From Uttar Pradesh, besides Dr. Joshi the candidate is Chhatrapal Singh, MP in the 13th Lok Sabha, who had been denied the ticket from Bulandshahr, from where Kalyan Singh contested and won.

From Karnataka, two candidates have been selected, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu and the former Chief Minister, Ramakrishna Hegde's widow, Shakuntala Hegde.

The election committee has authorised Mr. Naidu to decide the remaining candidates, one from Uttar Pradesh and another from Haryana.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National