RS nominations — Sonia rewards loyalits, BJP choice angers cadre

Another surprise nominee whose name has been reportedly cleared is Inder Khosla, an old family retainer who is a trustee of the Kamla Nehru Trust at Allahabad. He is to contest from Uttar Pradesh. Also cleared for the Upper House is well-known industrialist R P Goenka, also from Rajasthan.

Interestingly, of the names finalised so far, the one thing which stands out is that none of those who had been defeated in the Lok Sabha elections have been considered, a thumb rule set by Sonia herself.

The BJP is likely to field Union minister of state for information and broadcasting Arun Jaitley besides former MPs Praful Goradia and A K Patel for three Rajya Sabha seats party can win in Gujarat.

Sushma, Rajnath and senior journalist Balbir Punj are expected to be fielded from Uttar Pradesh where outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs Ramnath Kovid and Ram Bux Varma too have received party leadership’s nod.

Former chief minister Kailash Joshi and Mahila Morcha chief Maya Singh are likely to be fielded from Madhya Pradesh while Ram Jethmalani is expected to get the nod for Maharashtra. Party is learnt to have decided to field Virendra Kashyap from Himachal Pradesh and State party chief Manmohan Samal from Orissa.

For the Congress, perhaps what is rather curious is that Natwar, Khosla and Goenka are all trustees of institutions associated with the Gandhi familiy — Natwar is a trustee of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust while Goenka is trustee of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. As a senior CWC member remarked, “It appears a premium has been placed on trustees of the family to ensure their trust in the party chief.”

But the nomination of both Arjun and Natwar is an indication that Sonia’s writ will run on the crucial nominations and that she may have managed to temporarily ward off pressure from the dissidents.

Party sources said that former Union law minister and sitting Rajya Sabha MP H R Bharadwaj, a known loyalist of the Gandhi family since the days of Indira Gandhi has also made it to the Upper House as the party nominee, again from Madhya Pradesh. The party has three sure shot seats from the State and the remaining one is expected to go to PCC chief and Dalit leader Radhakrishan Malaviya.

In the BJP, the party cadre in Bihar is reportedly angry at finalisation of name of S S Ahluwalia, a former member of Congress’s shouting brigade in Lok Sabha, for the lone seat from Bihar ignoring the claim of senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad. Ahluwalia had joined the BJP barely a year and a half ago.

BJP’s decision to give precedence to M V Rajshekhar Murthy, former Karnataka Congress president who joined the BJP few months ago, over party’s economic cell chief Jagdish Shettigar, for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the State, too has fuelled discontent among the party cadre.

“It is unfair to reward a defector at the cost of a party loyalist who has put in umpteen number of years for the party,” claimed a BJP leader from Karnataka adding that with next election in the State five years away, Murthy’s election to Rajya Sabha as unlikely to benefit the party politically.

Biplab Dasgupta, Dipankar Mukherjee and Nilotpal Basu have been renominated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to contest Rajya sabha elections from West Bengal.

Their names were recommended by the state committee of the CPI(M) and approved by the politburo of the party here on Friday. On the basis of the strength of the party in the State Legislative Assembly, the three candidates were expected to be re-elected, party sources said.