New Delhi | Bihar's longest serving chief minister Nitish Kumar and BJP president Nitin Nabin are set to enter Rajya Sabha unopposed while NCP-SP supremo and veteran politician Sharad Pawar will return to the upper house once again after they filed their nomination papers on Thursday.
The leaders were among the 40 candidates who filed their papers on the last day of nomination for 37 seats that are falling vacant in 10 states, leading to a keen contest for one seat each Bihar, Odisha and Haryana.
Seven seats are falling vacant in Maharashtra, six in Tamil Nadu, five each in Bihar and West Bengal, four in Odisha, three in Assam and two each in Haryana, Telangana and Chhattisgarh, besides one seat in Himachal Pradesh.
The scrutiny of papers will take place on Friday, and the nominations can be withdrawn till March 9. If needed, polling will be held on March 16.
In Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam, assembly elections are likely to be held in April.
The BJP is set to increase its tally in the Upper house, where it will have the maximum number of seats after this round of election.
Among others who are set to return to the Upper house in this round of biennial election include Union ministers Ram Nath Thakur and Ramdas Athawale, besides former deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha M Thambidurai of DMK and noted lawyer Abhishek Singhvi of the Congress.
While Kumar and Nabin filed their nomination in Patna in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Pawar's papers were filed in Mumbai on his behalf by his daughter Supriya Sule.
JD(U) chief Kumar's decision to enter the Rajya Sabha election, after he expressed his desire to become a member of the upper house, paved the way for the formation of a new government, with the BJP now appearing poised to have its "own chief minister" in the only Hindi heartland state.
Bihar will also witness a keen contest for one seat as sitting RJD MP Amarendra Dhari Singh, a businessman turned politician, has been renominated by the party and he filed his papers accompanied by Tejashwi Yadav.
The RJD has 25 MLAs along with 10 others of the Mahagathbandhan, including Congress and Left, and hopes to make up for the deficit of six votes with the help of AIMIM and BSP.
RLM president Upendra Kushwaha, who seeks a second consecutive term, and BJP state general secretary Shivesh Kumar, a former MLA who hopes to make a debut in Parliament, also filed their papers.
Odisha too shall have a contest for one seat, as two candidates each of ruling BJP - state unit president Manmohan Samal and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Sujeet Kumar and opposition BJD's Santrupt Misra and eminent urologist Dr Datteswar Hota, filed their nominations, while Dilip Ray filed as an independent with BJP's support, sparking possibility of cross-voting.
Another keen contest is awaited for one seat in Haryana, which has seen cross-voting in the past too. Though the Congress has 37 MLAs and to win one seat, the opposition party needs only 31 first preference votes.
Satish Nandal, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 assembly polls as a BJP nominee, filed as an Independent, becoming the third entrant in the contest after BJP's Sanjay Bhatia and Karamvir Singh Boudh of the Congress.
In Maharashtra, six candidates of the ruling Mahayuti alliance, including Union minister Athawale and BJP leader Vinod Tawde, and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi nominee Sharad Pawar, are set to get elected unopposed. They filed their nominations on the last day.
Pawar, 85, was not present at Vidhan Bhawan owing to ill-health. His daughter Sule filed the papers on his behalf.
Besides Athawale and Tawde, the BJP fielded Ramrao Wadkute and Maya Ivnate, a former mayor of Nagpur who comes from a tribal background.
The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena fielded party spokesperson Jyoti Waghmare amid speculation that former Lok Sabha member Rahul Shewale might be nominated.
From the Nationalist Congress Party, former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar's son Parth Pawar has filed his nomination.
In poll-bound West Bengal, ruling TMC and the opposition BJP filed nominations for five Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal, setting the stage for a largely predetermined Upper House election.
Four candidates of the TMC - minister Babul Supriyo, former West Bengal DGP Rajeev Kumar, senior Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy and actor Koel Mallick - submitted their nomination papers in the assembly.
The BJP fielded former state unit president Rahul Sinha as the lone contender.
With the TMC commanding an overwhelming majority in the 294-member assembly, the party is comfortably placed to win four of the five seats.
In Assam, three aspirants from the ruling NDA - BJP's Jogen Mohan and Terash Gowala along with UPPL's Pramod Boro - filed their nominations and are likely to be elected unopposed.
In Telangana, Congress candidates Abhishek Singhvi and Vem Narender Reddy filed their nominations. They are likely to be elected unopposed.
Singhvi has been renominated from Telangana after completing a term of one and a half years.
In Tamil Nadu, AIADMK sitting MP M Thambidurai and PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss filed their nomination papers for the biennial election.
The PMK (Anbumani faction), which is part of the AIADMK-led alliance in the state, was allotted the seat by the AIADMK on March 4.
Ruling DMK candidates Tiruchi Siva and J Constantine Ravindran too filed their papers, besides Congress candidate M Christopher Tilak, and DMDK treasurer L K Sudeesh.
DMK's allies -- the Congress and Premalatha Vijayakanth-led DMDK, which joined the DMK's alliance recently, have been allotted a seat each by the Dravidian major.
In Chhattisgarh, BJP's Laxmi Verma and Congress candidate Phulo Devi Netam filed their nomination papers, both of whom will be elected unopposed.
In the hill state of Himachal Pradesh, the Congress picked an unlikely candidate for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh - president of Kangra district Congress Anurag Sharma.
Former Union minister Anand Sharma and former state Congress president Pratibha Singh and other party stalwarts were hopeful of getting a nomination to the upper house, but were denied a ticket by the party high command.
Patna | JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar on Thursday filed nomination papers for Rajya Sabha elections, marking a turning point in Bihar politics and virtually bringing the curtain down on his tenure as the state's longest-serving chief minister, paving the way for a new government in the Hindi heartland state, likely to be headed by the BJP.
Kumar, who turned 75 last week, may well go down in history as an astute politician who headed the state government a record 10 times since 2005, despite his JD(U) never winning a majority in the state assembly.
The JD(U) supremo announced his intention to return to Parliament through an X post, stunning party workers. JD(U) workers vandalised the party office, alleging that the BJP hatched a "conspiracy" to elbow out their trusted leader, with the help of "moles like Lalan Singh and Sanjay Jha," two of his most trusted aides. Singh and Jha didn't react to these charges.
Expressing gratitude to the people of the state, Kumar said, "For more than two decades, you have consistently placed your trust and support in me, and it is on the strength of that trust that we have served Bihar and all of you with complete dedication. It is the power of your trust and support that has enabled Bihar today to present a new dimension of development and dignity."
Kumar said that from the very beginning of his parliamentary journey, he wanted to become a member of both Houses of the Bihar legislature as well as both Houses of Parliament.
"In keeping with this aspiration, I seek to become a member of the Rajya Sabha in the elections being held this time," he said.
"I want to assure you with complete honesty that my relationship with you will continue in the future as well, and my resolve to work together with you to build a developed Bihar will remain steadfast. The new government that will be formed will have my full cooperation and guidance," he added.
He was accompanied, among others, by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who flew down from the national capital, during the nomination process.
Meanwhile, sources in the NDA said it will take a few weeks before Kumar relinquishes the Chief Minister's post, which he is likely to hold until leaving for the national capital to be sworn in as a member of Parliament.
During this period, the JD(U) is expected to formalise the induction of Kumar's only son, Nishant, whose entry into politics some leaders believe was indispensable to save the party from disintegration.
According to sources in the NDA, Kumar is also said to have apprised the BJP top leadership of the need to project "a Dalit face", suggesting that either the party choose a person from the Scheduled Castes as his successor or let one from JD(U) become the Deputy CM.
RJD working president Tejashwi Yadav, his former deputy who is currently the leader of the opposition, said, "BJP has done a Maharashtra in Bihar. But Nitish Kumar has only himself to blame. While in alliance, we supported him as Chief Minister despite having more MLAs, but he chose to walk away on two occasions."
The JD(U) supremo, however, has much to look back on with satisfaction. Having started as a politically inclined engineering student in the 1970s, he cut his teeth in the "JP movement" launched by legendary socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan.
Electoral success eluded him until 1985, when he won the Harnaut assembly seat in his home district of Nalanda.
Four years later, he was in Parliament, as the MP from Barh, and the "rise of the OBCs" that Mandal signified, earned him a berth in the ministry headed by VP Singh. Kumar has since never looked back despite switching allies frequently during his political journey of over 50 years.
Several opposition parties reacted strongly to the development. The Congress termed it a "leadership coup" and claimed it was a "regime change orchestrated by G2."
Yadav termed Kumar's decision a "betrayal" of the people's mandate and alleged the BJP has always been opposed to Dalits and OBCs, and with Kumar leaving the CM's post, it will seek to implement its agenda in the socialist stronghold.
Alleging that the BJP has "hijacked" Kumar, Yadav said that was the reason the veteran leader was now moving to the Rajya Sabha.
Nitish's action on Thursday has also paved the way for the formation of a new government, with the BJP now appearing poised to have its "own CM" in the only Hindi heartland state where the post has eluded the party.
The writing had been on the wall ever since the BJP emerged as the single largest party, with 89 seats, in the assembly polls held less than four months ago, outperforming the JD(U) for the second time after 2020.
Among the names doing the rounds for the CM's post is Samrat Choudhary, whom Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP's veritable principal strategist, had vowed to make "a big man" during the assembly poll campaign.
Choudhary, currently a Deputy CM with the crucial portfolio of Home, is a Koeri, an OBC caste which has been sore over never having its "own chief minister".
However, it remains to be seen whether the party, known to put a premium on ideology, would be willing to place more trust in Choudhary, who had started off with the RJD and joined the BJP less than a decade ago.
Another name that is doing the rounds is that of Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, a Sangh Parivar veteran who started off as a fiery ABVP activist when the Ayodhya movement was at its peak.
Rai is a Yadav, the most populous of all castes in Bihar, which has so far been aligned with Lalu Prasad and his RJD.
According to BJP sources, his elevation is "fraught with the risk of annoying the upper castes and alarming the numerically small Kurmis, the caste to which Nitish Kumar belongs, besides extremely backward classes, as these social groups consider the Yadavs to be too aggressive".
