Ahmedabad, 15 January 2014

As many as fifty Rajya Sabha members who were elected to upper house of parliament in year 2008 will complete their six years term soon. Four of them from Gujarat are Parshottam Rupala, Natusinh Thakor, Bharatsinh Parmar(all three from BJP) and Alka Kshatriya(Congress).

Elections of these fifty seats will take place on 7 February. Discussions on who will go to Rajya Sabha this time from Gujarat have already started in political circles. The choices of Rajya Sabha candidates are likely to be made considering the impact on Lok Sabha polls that are at just 100 days distance.

Nationally, among those whose present term is going to end are Murli Deora, G K Vasan, N K Singh, Venugopal Dhoot, Parimal Nathwani, Motilal Vora, Prakash Javadekar, Shanta Kumar, C P Thakur, Prabhat Jha, Balbir Punj, Jayanti Natrajan, Prabha Thakur among others.

Who stands where? Parshottam Rupala was sent to Rajya Sabha as a replacement of Keshubhai Patel. Natusinh Thakor was picked up by Modi for Rajya Sabha candidature to create Thakor leadership in north Gujarat ahead of the Lok Sabha polls(2009). However Natusinh couldn’t mobilize enough Thakor community votes for BJP either in year 2009 Lok Sabha polls or in 2012 assembly polls in north Gujarat. On the contrary, Congress’s Jagdish Thakor emerged as more acceptable Thakor leader in north Gujarat. Bharatsinh Parmar is on rise and in good book due to BJP’s grand victory in Bharuch district in last year’s assembly polls. He is silent contributor to party’s overall organizational work in Gujarat. Alka Kshatriya has become irrelevant after emergence of Jagdish Thakor from same segment, and victory of woman MP Prabha Taviyad.