NEW DELHI: Sixty
Rajya Sabha MPs
from BJP, including nine Union ministers, are among the 68 completing their tenure this year and many of them are likely to contest
Lok Sabha polls
, giving a chance to others who have been aspirants for the upper House for long. As many as 57 leaders, including railway minister
Ashwini Vaishnaw
, education minister
Dharmendra Pradhan
, environment minister
Bhupender Yadav
, health minister
Mansukh Madaviya
and former PM
Manmohan Singh
, will complete their tenures in April.
Uttar Pradesh will have the highest number of vacancies at 10, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (six each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Odisha, Telangana, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh (three each), Jharkhand and Rajasthan (two each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Chhattisgarh (one each). Four nominated members are retiring in July.
BJP president JP Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as Congress is in office there.
Congress can also look forward to sending its nominees to the upper House from Karnataka and Telangana, the states where it came to office last year. Congress can hope to send at least two nominees to RS from the Telangana.
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