RS poll: Sushma to replace Uma from MP

In fact, in a sign of the weakening hold of the national leadership over state units, only two 8216;8216;outsiders8217;8217; figured in the list of 18 candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections cleared by the BJP central election committee today.

Arun Jaitley, who represented Gujarat in the Upper House for the last six years, has been renominated by the state for another term. The second 8216;8216;outsider8217;8217; is Sushma Swaraj8212;she had been fielded from Uttaranchal six years ago and will now represent Madhya Pradesh.

Since the two leaders were of 8216;8216;national eminence8217;8217;, the state units gladly agreed to their candidature, BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan claimed. Jaitley had no trouble getting renominated from Gujarat, thanks to his close rapport with Narendra Modi.

In Swaraj8217;s case, the MP unit agreed to accommodate her but want her to devote a lot of time to the state to fill Uma8217;s vacuum. That the Uma factor is still haunting the BJP was also evident from the fact that a local tribal woman leader, Anusuya Uikey, too also been named for an RS seat. Swaraj and Uikey are the only two women on the list and both belong to MP.

But except for top national leaders like Swaraj and Jaitley, the state units made it clear that they will send 8216;8216;local8217;8217; leaders to the Rajya Sabha and not accommodate candidates foisted on them by the national leadership.

That is why despite the fact that the 8216;8216;domicile8217;8217; criterion is no longer necessary for RS membership i.e. a member does not have to belong to the state he/she is elected from, BJP state units have insisted on sending their own home-grown products to the House of Elders.

For instance, journalist Balbir Punj has not been renominated for a second term and none of the many hopefuls from the Fourth Estate has made it either. Punj represented Uttar Pradesh. His vacancy has been filled by former Bajrang Dal chief Vinay Katiyar who lost the LS polls from Lakhimpur Kheri.

Chhatrapal Singh, a Bijnore resident who managed to get elected from Orissa and was subsequently expelled in the cash-for-query scam, has also been replaced by a true-blue Oriya Bhagirathi Majhi this time.

Of the 16 candidates retiring from the Rajya Sabha on April 2, as many as nine have been renominated. They include Jaitley, Swaraj, Bal Apte, S S Ahluwalia, Kalraj Mishra, Vikram Verma, Narayan Singh Kesri, R N Pany and Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The BJP, with the help of JDU, can win one more seat from Bihar. But there is a big tussle on between several high-profile aspirants including Shahnawaz Hussain, C P Thakur, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav and Gopal Narain Singh. Hussain and Thakur are the front-runners in the race with the JDU inclined to favour Hussain8212;BJP8217;s sole Muslim face in Bihar.