The BJP may have to take a call on the candidature of these nine ministers and Nadda before deciding its Lok Sabha candidates.
In total, 68 Rajya Sabha members are retiring in 2024. BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh will have a maximum of 10 vacancies, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (six each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Odisha, Telangana, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh (three each), Jharkhand and Rajasthan (two each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh (one each).
On the back of victory in recent assembly polls in three states, the BJP’s tally in Rajya Sabha may remain the same as it is likely to lose seats in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha. While Congress will lose from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, it will gain from Telangana and Himachal Pradesh.
Four nominated members-Mahesh Jethmalani, Sonal Mansingh, Ram Shakal and Rakesh Sinha-all belonging to BJP-are also retiring in July.
Those leaders retiring in April include nine Union ministers: Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Bhupendra Yadav, Mansukh Mandaviya, Narayan Rane, Parshottam Rupala, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and V Muraleedharan.Former prime minister Manmohan Singh will also complete his tenure in April.For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state, as the Congress is in power there.
Similarly, BJP members CM Ramesh from Andhra Pradesh and Vaishnaw from Odisha are also retiring, and the party is unlikely to get any Rajya Sabha members from these two states.
The Congress can also look forward to sending its nominees to the Upper House of Parliament from Karnataka and Telangana, the states where it came to power last year. In Karnataka, four Rajya Sabha members are retiring, and in Telangana, three. BJP chief spokesperson Anil Baluni (Uttarakhand) is also retiring from the Rajya Sabha in Uttarakhand.
It would be interesting to see how Rajya Sabha elections play out in Maharashtra after the split in NCP and Shiv Sena.
