Lucknow: In a move that seeks to balance caste equations ahead of the 2027 UP assembly elections while rewarding long-serving organisation leaders and grassroots workers, BJP on Monday named eight candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls from the state. The list gives greater representation to OBCs and Dalits, underscoring the party’s effort to counter the Samajwadi Party ’s PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) outreach plank even as it elevates a number of leaders who rose through the organisation rather than electoral politics.
His election to Rajya Sabha will prompt him to relinquish his Assembly seat and also resign as UP minister within 14 days or else his RS election will be forfeited. Likewise, Priyanka Singh Rawat was elected as MP Barabanki in 2014, when she pulled off a major upset by defeating seasoned Congress leader PL Punia, becoming the fourth youngest MP at the age of 28. After being denied a ticket in 2019, Rawat was appointed as state general secretary.
Sources said the name of a former MP from Lodh community was also doing the rounds, but the party decided on Dharampal, who represents Aonla assembly seat in Bareilly. The party fielded UP animal husbandry minister Dharampal Singh, state vice-president Priyanka Singh Rawat , OBC Morcha state president Prakash Pal, state general secretary Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan, lawyer and former Allahabad HC Bar Association president Radhakant Ojha, former MP Vidya Sagar Sonkar, BJP Kisan Morcha leader Gopi Krishna Pandey and Shruti Gangwar, daughter of former Union minister and ex-Bareilly MP Santosh Gangwar. The candidature of Dharampal Singh is seen as a strategic move to elevate a Lodh leader after sidelining BL Verma. His nomination turned the spotlight on BJP’s fresh attempt to consolidate the Lodh community which accounts for a sizable population among the OBCs. Prakash Pal, the other OBC face, was recently appointed as the state chief of OBC morcha in Uttar Pradesh . His website describes him as a leader with over three decades of experience in organizational leadership and public engagement. BJP decision to nominate Shruti Gangwar for Rajya Sabha is acknowledgement of Santosh Gangwar, BJP’s longest serving parliamentarian who represented Bareilly LS seat eight times, was a Union minister before getting a gubernatorial appointment as 11th governor of Jharkhand. Gangwar hails from Kurmi community, another electorally significant community in Uttar Pradesh. She was recently appointed state vice-president as part of organizational overhaul.
Hailing from Kanpur, Pal was earlier the president of BJP’s Kanpur-Bundelkhand organizational region.
BJP dropped both Rajya Sabha MPs and Union ministers — Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma — stoking speculations about their future in the Modi govt, particularly with the reshuffle in the Union cabinet expected soon. BJP also decided against repeating any of its other retiring RS MPs – Neeraj Shekhar, Seema Dwivedi, Brij Lal, Geeta Shakya and Arun Singh. Dinesh Sharma had already resigned from Rajya Sabha following his appointment as the Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.