Manoj Sinha, former Union minister

PATNA: Former Union minister Manoj Sinha , who represented Ghazipur (Uttar Pradesh) seat three times in the Lok Sabha, has emerged as front runner for being the BJP candidate for the Rajya Sabha election from Bihar.

Election to five seats of the Rajya Sabha from Bihar will be held on March 26. Notification for this biennial election was issued on Friday, but no nomination was filed on the first day because none of the leading political parties have so far officially declared their candidates.

The biennial election is being held as altogether five vacancies from Bihar will be created in the Upper House following retirement of Harivansh, Kahkashan Perween, Ram Nath Thakur (all from JD-U), Dr C P Thakur and R K Sinha (both from BJP) on April 9 this year.

Sources in the BJP said, the party’s top leadership has made up its mind not to resend either Dr Thakur or R K Sinha to the Rajya Sabha due to various reasons.

“As the party has decided to drop Dr Thakur, a towering leader of Bhumihar caste, it wanted to make a leader of the same caste as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha. Other Bhumihar leaders are also in the race for candidature, but Manoj Sinha, because of his proximity with the party’s top leaders, has emerged as the front runner,” a senior BJP leader, who didn’t want to be identified, told TOI on Friday.

The first preferential vote of 42 members of Bihar Vidhan Sabha would be required for a candidate’s entry into the Rajya Sabha. The BJP has 54 legislators in the 243-member state assembly. As per its strength, the saffron party can send only one member to the Upper House.

Lalu Prasad’s RJD- with its 81 MLAs and support of its smaller allies like Congress (26) and friendly party- CPI-ML (3)- can send two members to the Rajya Sabha. While the RJD itself has a long list of aspirants for the Rajya Sabha tickets, ally Congress, sources say, has been exerting pressure to spare one of the two seats to it on the plea that Lalu had assured to give one Rajya seat to the Congress during the distribution of Lok Sabha seats among the Grand Alliance partners in 2019.

Sources in the RJD said, Congress want to field former Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha as its candidate but not without getting the blessings of the incarcerated RJD boss who is currently in Ranchi. Shatrughan had met Lalu at a Ranchi hospital on February 15 this year.

RJD’s Rajya Sabha member from Jharkhand Prem Chand Gupta whose current term is ending on April 9 this year, is one of the main contenders for the RS ticket from Bihar.

Sources in the RJD said, the leader of opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Friday went to Delhi to hold a talk with the Congress leadership on the Rajya Sabha election.

“RJD has authorized the party chief Lalu Prasad for taking decision on candidature for the Rajya election. He will declare the name of the party candidates at an appropriate time,” RJD spokesperson Chitranjan Gagan told TOI.

