BJP debates selection criteria for RS candidates

NEW DELHI: With elections due to 60 Rajya Sabha seats next month, of which the BJP hopes to secure 14 — one more than the 13 who are retiring — there is a debate on in the party about the criteria both for renomination as well as whether those who have just Lok Sabha seats should be accommodated.
There appears to be clarity, party sources said on Wednesday, that BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu (from Karnataka), party general-secretary Pramod Mahajan (from Maharashtra) and former Union finance minister Jaswant Singh (from Rajasthan) will be renominated.But with BJP leadership criticising the UPA coalition for making Shivraj Patil, P M Sayeed and Praful Patel — all of whom contested and lost in the recent elections — ministers, the party is trying to figure out what justification it can give for bringing former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi, former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, former petroleum minister Ram Naik and former MoS O Rajgopal — all of whom contested and lost — into the RS.
In the case of Joshi, Sinha and Naik, one argument for bringing them in is that all three are forceful speakers and the party requires their services in Parliament, especially when playing the role of the principal opposition.
In the case of Joshi, three BJP RS MPs are retiring from UP — former telecom and disinvestment minister Arun Shourie, B P Singhal and Dinanath Mishra — but the party has enough votes only to win two seats from the state. While Singhal and Mishra, party sources said, are likely to be dropped, Shourie is likely to be renominated. So Joshi could be given the second seat.
However, from neighbouring Uttaranchal, former MoS S P Gautam is retiring and can''t be renominated from the state as the party doesn''t have the numbers there. Gautam is a Dalit and the party does not wish to send out an anti-Dalit message so soon after the elections.