Sidhu, Mary Kom among 6 to be nominated to Rajya Sabha

Friday, 22/04/2016

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NEW DELHI: Cricketer-tur nedpolitician and former Amritsar MP Navjot Singh Sidhu is among the six people to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha as the government has decided to fill six of the seven vacancies in the nominated-member category with people close to the ruling BJP.

While the seventh candidate is not yet decided, the six nominations are Sidhu, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, former journalist and BJP ideologue Swapan Dasgupta, Malayalam actor and star campaigner for BJP Suresh Gopi, economist and former member of National Advisory Council Narendra Jadhav and boxer Mary Kom, sources in the government and BJP confirmed.

According to sources, Sidhu was offered the seat after the BJP leadership feared he might join the Aam Aadmi Party as their chief minister candidate in Punjab. Sidhu, a three-time Lok Sabha member from Amritsar, had made way for party leader Arun Jaitley during the 2014 general election.

The seventh name, sources said, could not be decided between actor Anupam Kher and journalist and India TV promoter Rajat Sharma. The government move comes on a day when the Uttarakhand high court in an unprecedented manner set aside the President’s rule. The nominated members are recommended by the President, though on the government advice, from diversified fields such as literature, science, sports, art and social service.

On March 21, five members--Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyer, lyricist Javed Akhtar, theatre personality B Jayashree, educationist Mrinal Miri and economist Bhalchandra Mungekar-- had retired. Two others, industry expert Ashok Ganguly and senior journalist HK Dua had already retired in November last year.

Swamy, a Harvard-educated economist, was one of the petitioners in the Spectrum scam that marked the decline of the Congress-led UPA, and is also a known critic of finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Suresh Gopi, a Malayalam action hero, has been warming up to the BJP since 2013, when the actor had met Narendra Modi, the then BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

Though the BJP offered him a ticket in the upcoming Kerala elections, he had refused to take the plunge.

He is one of the star campaigners of the BJP in Kerala. The Kerala unit of the BJP is hopeful that the party will make its debut in this election.

Swapan Dasgupta has been a leading defender of the BJP in television debates for close to a decade.

Considered close to Jaitley, Dasgupta’s name has been doing rounds for several sensitive postings since the BJP-led government took over at the Centre in 2014.

Boxing champion Mary Kom, hailing from north-east, is nominated keeping in view representation from eastern states as well as her panIndia popularity after actress Priyanka Chopra played Kom in a 2014 biopic, sources said.

Narendra Jadhav, a noted economist, was member of Congress president Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council in the previous regime. An authority on BR Ambedkar, he has developed an independent rapport with Modi, leading to his nomination, sources said.