Puri’s Exit Amid Cabinet Reshuffle Buzz: BJP’s Rajya Sabha Picks Reflect UP Poll Strategy

The first sign of the much-speculated cabinet reshuffle was visible on Monday as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri from the list of Rajya Sabha candidates announced by the party.

The Rajya Sabha tenure of Puri is scheduled to end in November this year, and the Rajya Sabha polls are scheduled to take place on October 16 later this month.

Although the BJP leadership is tight-lipped about the cabinet reshuffle and the future prospects of Puri, the list of Rajya Sabha candidates announced by the BJP has a few surprises. The BJP leadership has not clarified whether Puri will get a Rajya Sabha nomination from any other state.

Among the BJP leaders included in the list of Rajya Sabha candidates is Shruti Gangwar, daughter of the Governor of Jharkhand, Santosh Gangwar. The BJP leadership has also brought back Priyanka Singh Rawat, a former Lok Sabha member from Barabanki.

BJP's Uttar Pradesh Choices

Even though most of the people announced in the list are new to the Rajya Sabha, the candidates are not new to Uttar Pradesh politics. The BJP leadership has named Dharampal Singh for the Rajya Sabha. He is the general secretary (organisation) of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and works closely with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Similarly, the BJP leadership has also given a ticket to Radhakant Ojha, who is a senior lawyer in the Allahabad High Court and the elder brother of former minister Shivakant Ojha, who is a prominent leader of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

The names of the candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls also include Prakash Pal, the chief of Backward Classes in Uttar Pradesh.

Ahead of the crucial Uttar Pradesh elections and the general elections in 2029, the BJP is trying to win the Rae Bareli seat from Congress. The BJP leadership has named Vidyasagar Sonkar, state general secretary of the BJP and also a prominent face of the BJP in Rae Bareli. The BJP has also named Gopi Krishna Pandey, a prominent farmer leader of Uttar Pradesh who is closely associated with the BJP.

With the Uttar Pradesh elections just a few months away, the BJP has named Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan, who is the in-charge of western Uttar Pradesh in the state unit of the BJP.

Preparation For Uttar Pradesh Polls

The list of candidates for the Rajya Sabha reflects the social engineering of the BJP that the party is planning before the crucial state polls.

Out of the eight candidates announced for the Rajya Sabha polls, the BJP has named Brahmin candidates, Rajput candidates and candidates from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and there are also two women candidates on the list.

The government under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is hoping to make history in the state by becoming chief minister for the third consecutive time.

While the BJP has tried to accommodate candidates from the Bundelkhand region, western Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabad region and the Agra region in the list of Rajya Sabha candidates, some of the senior leaders, such as Neeraj Shekhar, Arun Singh and BL Verma, have been denied a Rajya Sabha seat in the new list.