The absence of the name of Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi from the list of BJP nominees to the Rajya Sabha, as his own term ends, will mean that the party will have no Muslim member in either House of Parliament as the current round of Upper House polls conclude.
Till the Budget Session, the BJP had three Muslim MPs; all, however, in the Rajya Sabha, and none in the Lok Sabha. These MPs — Mr. Naqvi, BJP spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam and journalist-turned-politician M.J. Akbar are all completing their tenures by July and unless renominated, will end up with BJP having no Muslim face in Parliament. Mr. Islam is retiring on July 4 and Mr. Akbar on June 29.
In the Lok Sabha, the larger National Democratic Alliance has just one Muslim member, Mehboob Ali Kaiser, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) MP from Khagaria in Bihar, as all six BJP candidates who contested the polls in 2019 lost. There is a talk that Mr. Naqvi may be asked to contest the Lok Sabha bypoll from Rampur after the seat was vacated by Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan who chose to retain his Assembly seat after the recent Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, but that is purely speculative at this point.
