Hardeep Puri among two Union Ministers dropped from BJP’s UP list for Rajya Sabha polls - The Indian Express
The BJP on Monday announced eight candidates for the October 16 Rajya Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh, leaving out Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and B L Verma, whose terms in the Upper House are set to end next month.
Puri is currently the Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas. Verma is the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and Social Justice and Empowerment.
With their Rajya Sabha terms ending on November 25 and the BJP not renominating them, they can continue as the Union ministers for up to six months without being a member of either House of Parliament, as per the constitutional provisions.
The omission of the two ministers’ names was seen as an indication that there could be a reshuffle of the Union ministry in the coming months.
The BJP’s list of Rajya Sabha candidates from UP comprises three OBC faces, two Brahmins, two Dalits and one Thakur nominee. The list increases the share of OBCs and Dalits because the eight seats falling vacant had two OBCs, two Thakurs, two Brahmins along with one Dalit and one Sikh.
Among the OBC candidates this time is Dharampal Singh, the BJP MLA from Bareilly’s Aonla and a minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led government, where he holds the Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development portfolio. Singh is a Lodh, with his nomination seen as a replacement for Verma who also belongs to the community.
The Lodh group is influential in the Bundelkhand and Rohilkhand regions of UP, which has traditionally backed the BJP. Its support for the party is also linked to former UP CM late Kalyan Singh, a Lodh leader who was one of the BJP’s tallest OBC leaders.
The other two OBC nominees in the BJP’s list are Prakash Pal, state president of the party’s OBC Morcha who hails from Kanpur district, and Shruti Gangwar of Bareilly. Shruti, an IIT graduate, is the daughter of Jharkhand Governor Santosh Gangwar. She has been politically active in the Bareilly-Baheri region.
The two Brahmin nominees are Radha Kant Ojha, a lawyer from Prayagraj and younger brother of former minister Shivakant Ojha, and Gopi Krishna Pandey of Kanpur, who has worked in the party’s farmer and youth wings.
The BJP’s Dalit candidates are former Barabanki MP Priyanka Singh Rawat, a state party vice-president, and Vidya Sagar Sonkar from Jaunpur, former MLC and state party general secretary.
The eighth nominee Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan, former MLA from Agra, is a state BJP general secretary in charge of the western region. He has been involved in several key party campaigns.
UP’s 10 Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant have had eight BJP members – Hardeep Singh Puri, Arun Singh, Geeta Shakya, Neeraj Shekhar, Brij Lal, B L Verma, Dinesh Sharma and Seema Dwivedi. Dinesh Sharma vacated his seat last month following his appointment as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Lieutenant Governor. The BJP has not re-nominated any of the remaining seven MPs.
The principal Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) has renominated veteran leader Ram Gopal Yadav, uncle of party president Akhilesh Yadav, whose current term is also ending next month. The party has fielded Reliance executive Dhanraj Nathwani as its second Rajya Sabha candidate.
The SP has enough strength in the UP Assembly to get its two candidates elected for the Upper House.
Nathwani, 40, is the son of Parimal Nathwani, Director, Corporate Affairs for Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), who was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand as an NDA-backed Independent in the June 2026 election, securing his fourth consecutive term in the Upper House.
Another Rajya Sabha seat from UP is falling vacant due to retirement of Ramji Gautam, currently the lone BSP representative in Parliament.
The BJP and the SP have the numbers to smoothly win seven and two seats respectively. However, a contest is likely to take place for the remaining one seat, with the SP planning to field a third candidate. The contest would take place in the run-up to the high-stakes UP Assembly elections slated for February 2027.
Currently, there are 396 MLAs in the 403-member UP Assembly. Each Rajya Sabha candidate, therefore, will require 37 first-preference votes to win.
The SP has 101 MLAs. However, its effective strength is 100 as Chail MLA Puja Pal, who continues to figure in the House records as an SP member, has switched to the BJP and is currently its state vice-president.
With the support of two Congress MLAs, the SP has 102 votes, nine short of the first-preference votes required to ensure the victory of its third candidate.
The BJP has 255 MLAs with its NDA allies adding another 33 members: Apna Dal (S) 13, RLD 9, SBSP 6, and NISHAD Party 5. With the support of Puja Pal; unaffiliated MLAs Manoj Pandey, Rakesh Pratap Singh, and Abhay Singh who were expelled from the SP in June 2025 for cross-voting in the 2024 Rajya Sabha polls; and two MLAs of the Raja Bhaiyya-led Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik), the NDA’s effective tally could reach 294, two short of the required 296 (37 for each) first-preference votes to ensure a win for its eight candidates.
The BJP is placing its bets on MLAs Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi and Ashutosh Maurya, who had also cross-voted in 2024 but still continue to be listed as SP members in the Assembly records as Akhilesh had not expelled them citing their “good conduct”. Chaturvedi told The Indian Express that he would vote in favour of a BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls.
Lalmani is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, and is based in New Delhi. He covers politics of the Hindi Heartland, tracking BJP, Samajwadi Party, BSP, RLD and other parties based in UP, Bihar and Uttarakhand. Covered the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024; Assembly polls of 2012, 2017 and 2022 in UP along with government affairs in UP and Uttarakhand. ... Read More
Jatin Anand is an Assistant Editor with the national political bureau of The Indian Express. With over 17 years of experience in mainstream journalism, he is a seasoned expert in national governance, electoral politics, and bureaucratic affairs. Having covered high-stakes beats including the Election Commission of India (ECI), intelligence, and urban development, Jatin provides authoritative analysis of the forces shaping Indian democracy. He is an alumnus of Zakir Husain Delhi College (DU) and the prestigious Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai, where he specialized in Print Journalism. Expertise High-Stakes Beat Coverage: Throughout his decade-and-a-half career, Jatin has covered some of the most sensitive and influential beats in the country, including: The Election Commission of India (ECI): Monitoring electoral policy, reforms, and the conduct of national and state polls. National Security & Intelligence: Reporting on the internal mechanisms and developments within India's security apparatus. Urban Development: Analyzing the policies and bureaucratic processes driving the transformation of India’s cities. National Political Bureau: In his current role, he tracks the intersection of policy and politics, offering deep-dive reporting on the Union government and national political movements. Academic Credentials: Zakir Husain Delhi College (DU): Alumnus of one of Delhi's premier institutions. Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai: Specialized in Print Journalism at India's most prestigious journalism school. ... Read More
