By IANS,
Bhopal : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh is faced with the problem of too many candidates for too few seats — a large number of party leaders are vying to get nominated for the two vacant Rajya Sabha seats.
And the problem has been confounded after the BJP was defeated in 13 of the constituencies in the recent general elections — many party bigwigs who lost are now eyeing the Rajya Sabha.
The seats fell vacant after Rajya Sabha MPs Sushma Swaraj and Narendra Singh Tomar were elected from Vidisha and Bhind Lok Sabha seats respectively.
“The defeat of the BJP on a good number of Lok Sabha seats in the state has led to a number of party heavyweights being added to the list of probables with the result that those already in the race for Rajya Sabha would face more difficulties in making it to the Upper House as its members,” a party source said.
“Three legislators – Jaswant Singh Hada, Babulal Verma and Santosh Joshi – have already met Tomar, who is BJP state president, to push the name of Thaverchand Gehlot for Rajya Sabha seat. Gehlot lost the Lok Sabha poll from Dewas parliamentary constituency,” a party leader said on condition of anonymity.
The other defeated candidates whose supporters are keen to see their leaders in Rajya Sabha include Satyanarayan Jatia, Laxminarayan Pandey, Dileep Singh Bhuria and also Faggan Singh Kulaste.
Tomar said: “Everyone wants to get some position but it is for the party’s central leadership to decide on the nominations on the basis of merit.”