No Hardeep Puri, Smriti Irani: The New BJP Faces For UP Rajya Sabha Polls

There's no mention of Smriti Irani, who was recently appointed as BJP General Secretary, marking her return to the party's front line of leaders. There's no Hardeep Puri either. The Union Minister who was elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

This as the BJP on Monday afternoon announced the names of eight candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in UP.

Dharam Pal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar are the eight BJP candidates for the polls.

BJP sources said the party approved the names of these eight candidates keeping in mind social, regional and caste combinations.

Elections to 12 Rajya Sabha seats across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal will be held on October 16. The votes will be counted the same day.

As per the current Rajya Sabha strength, the BJP has 116 lawmakers, making it the single largest party in the Upper House.

Among the Rajya Sabha members retiring from Uttar Pradesh are BJP leaders Hardeep Puri, Arun Singh, Geeta Shakya, Neeraj Shekhar, Brijlal, B L Verma and Seema Dwivedi, Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav and BSP's Ramji Gautam.

The Rajya Sabha seat held by former Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma has also been vacant since September 11, when his resignation took effect following his appointment as lieutenant governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

There had been speculation regarding several names over the past few days. Discussions centered on Union General Secretaries Smriti Irani and Harish Dwivedi, as well as Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma. Former MPs Kaushal Kishore and Sanjeev Balyan were also among those discussed.

The BJP does not have a tradition of immediately sending newly appointed General Secretaries to the Rajya Sabha.

Over the last decade, General Secretaries who made it to the Rajya Sabha were given the opportunity only after a significant interval following their assumption of the post.

From former General Secretary Arun Singh to the current General Secretary and UP in-charge Vinod Tawde, the opportunity came only after they had served in the organisational role for a long period.

General Secretary Sunil Bansal serves as another example. Despite holding the position for a long time, the party has not yet sent him to the Rajya Sabha.

According to party sources, the BJP had decided not to award Rajya Sabha tickets to leaders who had lost Lok Sabha elections. This is why Smriti Irani (who lost from Amethi), Harish Dwivedi (Basti), Kaushal Kishore (Mohanlalganj), and Sanjeev Balyan (Muzaffarnagar) did not receive tickets, sources said, citing names.

Former MP Priyanka Rawat did receive a ticket. Although she won from Barabanki in 2014, she had been denied tickets in 2019 and 2024. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Kurmi community (OBC) and the Pasi community (Dalit) had drifted away from the BJP and shifted towards the Samajwadi Party.

The search for a Pasi candidate concluded with Priyanka Rawat, while the search for a Kurmi candidate ended with Shruti Gangwar. Also, both are women.

The party has sent Puri to the Rajya Sabha twice. He also contested the Lok Sabha elections but lost. His current Rajya Sabha term ends in November; he could technically remain a minister for six months beyond that.

The question is if Puri, the only Sikh minister in the Modi cabinet, will be retained until then, given the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections.

BL Verma is a prominent Lodh leader from Western UP. He was a strong contender for the post of UP BJP chief, but it went to Pankaj Chaudhary of the Kurmi community.

Now, instead of Verma, Dharampal Singh - a cabinet minister in the Yogi Adityanath government who also hails from the Lodh community - is being sent to the Rajya Sabha.

The message from this BJP list is clear: the decision was made with 'Mission 2027' in mind.

The party has also conveyed a crucial message to its leaders - continue working within the organisation, and the party will certainly provide an opportunity sooner or later, sources said.