The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced its two candidates from Rajasthan for the upcoming Rajya Sabha biennial elections for three seats in the State. The ruling BJP is set to get two of the seats, while the Opposition Congress will get one, on the basis of their respective strengths in the State Assembly.
The two BJP candidates are BJP State vice-president and former Minister Chunnilal Garasiya, and former Sumerpur MLA Madan Rathore. Mr. Rathore was elected an MLA twice, in 2003 and 2013, and served as the BJP’s Deputy Chief Whip in the Assembly. He was earlier the Chairperson of Pali Central Cooperative Bank.
Mr. Garasiya, a low-profile BJP leader hailing from Udaipur district, is the tribal face of the party. He was elected an MLA twice, in 1990 and 1993, from Udaipur Rural constituency, and he served as a Minister of State for Tribal Area Development. He was also national president of the BJP’s Scheduled Tribe Morcha.
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The BJP has 115 and the Congress 70 MLAs in the 200-member State Assembly. A minimum of 67 votes will be required to win one Rajya Sabha seat in the event of a contest.
The terms of office of Congress MP and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP MP and Environment Miniter Bhupendra Yadav will come to an end on April 3. Besides these two, one Rajya Sabha seat has become vacant after the resignation of the BJP’s Kirodi Lal Meena following his victory in the 2023 Assembly election from Sawai Madhopur. Mr. Meena is at present the State’s Agriculture Minister.
The BJP has sought to balance the caste composition of its candidates by fielding a tribal and a Rajput for the Rajya Sabha elections. While Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and the party’s State president, C.P. Joshi, are Brahmins, one of the two Deputy CMs is a member of a Scheduled Caste, and another is Rajput. The party has also opted to field the local leaders for the Upper House, and has avoided national faces.
There are 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan, out of which six are with the Congress and four with the BJP. Among the Congress-held seats, only one MP, Neeraj Dangi, is from Rajasthan; the others are from outside the State.
