Imphal, April 22: Of the seven 5 outstanding personalities that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is nominating to fill the vacant seats of Rajya Sabha, 5 times World Champion Manipuri Pugilist Mary Kom’s name has been included along with BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, former journalist and BJP spokesman Swapan Dasgupta, Malayalam actor and BJP’s star campaigner in Kerala Suresh Gopi and former member of National Advisory Council Narendra Jadhav, said an official source. The source added that the name of the five nominee have been forwarded to the President’s office for taking his consent.
At the moment 7 among the12 seats to be nominated from among people expertise in various fields, such as art, literature, culture, and science, among others are lying vacant. The other five are currently occupied by entrepreneur Anu Aga, actress Rekha, cricketer Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, lawyers K Parasaran and KTS Tulsi.
The BJP, which has a minority in the Rajya Sabha, is attempting to increase its hold over the Upper House of the Parliament in order to overcome the hurdles it has been facing in passing bills. Elections were held in March 2016 for 12 non-nominated seats and another election will be held in July for 64 seats when the number of BJP MPs is set to rise as the number of Congress MPs decreases, according to Scroll.,br> Other sources told the newspaper that former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu may also be nominated.,br> It is yet to be decided if journalist Rajat Sharma or actor Anupam Kher would be nominated for the seventh seat.
The government took the decision to fill the seats before the beginning of the Parliament session on Monday. President Pranab Mukherjee would select the candidates based on the recommendation of the central government, which needs support to pass its crucial GST bill on goods and services tax in the Parliament, according to the Times of India.
