Rajya Sabha bypolls: BJP fields Union ministers Ravneet Bittu, George Kurian
Ten out of 12 Rajya Sabha seats had fell vacant after their respective members got elected to the Lok Sabha. Two other members had resigned.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced candidates for nine out of 12 Rajya Sabha seats going to bypolls on September 3. Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu has been fielded from Rajasthan, the state ruled by BJP at present. The 48-year-old leader had quit Congress and joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He contested from Ludhiana in Punjab as a BJP candidate but lost to Congress leader Amarinder Singh Raja Warring. Bittu is currently a Union Minister of State Railway & Food Processing Industries.
The BJP has also fielded George Kurian, Union minister of State in the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, from Madhya Pradesh. The Lok Sabha seat fell vacant after Rajya Sabha member and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia won the Lok Sabha election from the Guna constituency.Kurian has been an organisation man within the Kerala BJP unit for the last four decades after he entered politics with the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of BJP.
From Bihar, senior advocate Manan Kumar Mishra is the BJP candidate for the Rajya Sabha bypoll. The BJP has named Kiran Choudhary, who quit Congress to join the party two months ago, as the candidate from Haryana. The bypoll for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Haryana was necessitated after Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rohtak. From Maharashtra, the BJP has fielded Dhairyashil Patil while Mamata Mohanta is the saffron party candidate from Odisha, a state where the BJP swept the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in June. The BJP has fielded Rajib Bhattacharjee from Tripura.
10 Rajya Sabha members got elected to LS
Ten out of 12 Rajya Sabha seats had fell vacant after their respective members got elected to the Lok Sabha. Two other seats were vacant as their members had resigned.The Rajya Sabha members who were elected to Lok Sabha include Union ministers Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra, Jyotiraditya Scindia from MP, Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda from Haryana and Congress general secretary KC Venugopal from Rajasthan among others.
