57 Rajya Sabha seats on June 10 due to Elders vacating their seats in 15 States is just not numbers: It holds key to how National Democratic Alliance (NDA) brings in legislations which seizes the imagination of voters and makes it a hat-trick in power for them in the 2024 general elections.
The NDA, essentially powered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is mindful it had to beat a retreat on farm laws, Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) and lest it becomes a pattern to any legislation they bring in, it’s important they secure the mandate in both Houses of the Parliament to ensure easy passage of legislations and lock the trust in their governance.
Presently, NDA has 117 members in the 245-member Rajya Sabha, including 101 of BJP alone which is astonishing in itself since nobody but Congress (1988) ever reached the three-figures in the House in the last quarter century of Indian politics.
It all could change quickly too since 75 Elders are set to retire before the year is out and machinations in political circles is in full swing, never mind the inattentive Media which is yet to be gripped with the matter.
None has a bigger slice of Rajya Sabha seats in these 15 States than Uttar Pradesh where BJP scripted history with successive mandate and occupies 273 of 403 seats including those of its allies.
Uttar Pradesh would send 11 Elders to Rajya Sabha on June 10 and seven from NDA-BJP and three from Samajwadi Party are assured of wins. It’s the 11th seat which the two main protagonists are eyeing which could swell their numbers either to 8 or 4 Rajya Sabha members.
In passing, for those innocents on the procedure, a Rajya Sabha nomination happens on the votes of legislators in the lower house. Since it would take 37 votes to elect one, BJP and SP easily take care of 10 of the 11 vacant Rajya Sabha seats.
Those in know of UP politics, see two candidates jostling for a berth in Rajya Sabha: Sanjay Seth and Naresh Agarwal, both having been part of Samajwadi Party once, both being in BJP presently, and both having enjoyed stints in Rajya Sabha previously.
Seth is a mover in Real Estate sector, besides a senior member in a clutch of sports bodies but politically is lightweight compared to maverick Agarwal who comes from a lineage of a prominent political family of the State.
Naresh Agarwal is the son of a Shrish Chandra Agrawal who won on a Congress ticket in 1974 from Hardoi and since then the district has been the citadel of Agrawals, including the scion Nitin now, as they have withstood all challenges, including the one from BJP itself in the landmark 2017 assembly polls when the party wrought a political tsunami with its victory. (it won 325 of 403 seats).
Called the “Naresh” of Hardoi, for his unending goodwill from the constituency where he won on seven occasions, Naresh Agarwal is unused to being on the sidelines; a reason which made him quit Congress and Samajwadi Party in the past.
To the extent, that he once even floated his own party!
Since joining BJP in 2018, Agarwal has kept a low profile not insignificant though since he, along with his son, was the reason BJP swept from these seats in the recent 2022 assembly polls.
Since there is little likelihood of Agarwals losing their charm with the voters here, critical since UP holds the key to 2024 general polls, BJP could find it prudent to prefer Naresh Agarwal over Sanjay Seth for a Rajya Sabha seat, more so since the latter was recently embarrassed by allegations of his son’s involvement with a call girl from Thailand which, incidentally, police found to be defamatory in nature.
Naresh Agarwal, at 70 now, of course has seen and done it all but if shifting from SP to BJP was on account of a promise—like it usually is as was the case with Jyotiraditya Scindia—it remains to be seen if the BJP is able to deliver on its own side of deal.
Or whether we have another renege, like one has witnessed in Bengal, Punjab, Bihar and Maharashtra, emerging from the dusty plains of Uttar Pradesh.
Wily as they are, one doubts if BJP would let go on an asset in the run-up not just to 2024 assembly polls but also to at least three critical assembly polls in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan—the last two being in the Hindi heartland itself.
