Lucknow, Oct 7: The BJP has dropped Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, another Union minister BL Verma and six other sitting Rajya Sabha members from its list of eight candidates for the upcoming biennial elections in Uttar Pradesh, in a reshuffle that combines caste representation with organisational experience. The list also carries a direct Andaman and Nicobar connection, with former Rajya Sabha member Dinesh Sharma now serving as Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory.
The BJP announced the eight candidates on Monday for the October 16 Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. Puri and Verma, whose terms in the Upper House end next month, were not included in the nominations. The other sitting MPs left out are Arun Singh, Seema Dwivedi, Neeraj Shekhar, Brij Lal and Geeta Shakya.
The new list includes Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar. Two women, Rawat and Gangwar, feature among the nominees.
The social composition of the list includes three Other Backward Class candidates, two Scheduled Caste candidates and three upper-caste candidates. The OBC nominees represent the Lodhi, Pal and Kurmi communities, while the upper-caste candidates include two Brahmins and one Rajput.
Dharampal Singh, a BJP MLA from Aonla in Bareilly district, is associated with the Lodh community, which has an influential presence in the Bundelkhand region. He has served twice as a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.
Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan, another nominee, is the BJP’s state general secretary and has been overseeing several key party campaigns in Uttar Pradesh.
Among the two women candidates, Shruti Gangwar is the daughter of Jharkhand Governor Santosh Gangwar. Priyanka Singh Rawat is a former Barabanki Lok Sabha MP who won the seat in 2014 after defeating Congress veteran PL Punia.
Dinesh Sharma, who had earlier represented Uttar Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha, now heads the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as Lieutenant Governor. His inclusion in the broader political context of the reshuffle comes as the BJP finalises its Upper House nominations from Uttar Pradesh.
The caste composition of the nominations also comes ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections scheduled for next year. The party’s selection of candidates therefore places its Rajya Sabha nominations alongside its wider electoral calculations in the state, while retaining a mix of social representation and organisational experience.
The BJP’s latest nominations leave Puri, Verma and the six other sitting MPs out of the contest as the party prepares for the October 16 biennial elections.
