Madhya Pradesh: The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has nominated Union minister of the state of information and broadcasting, L Murugan as its nominee for the Rajya Sabha by-election to be held in Madhya Pradesh on October 04.
Whereas, Sonowal, the current Union minister for ports, shipping, and waterways, will be the party’s nominee for the seat in Assam that felt vacant. Currently, BJP is the single largest party in the upper chamber, with 94 members.
The election commission announced by-polls to 7 vacant seats in Rajya Sabha on September 9th. 5 of 6 Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant after the resignation of 1 member from Madhya Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal each and 4 members from Tamil Nadu. The 6th seat fell vacant after the demise of Rajeev Shankarrao Satav, who had been a member of the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra.
State CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan extended wishes to L Murugan taking to his Twitter handle. The tweet in Hindi read- “Congratulations on filling the nomination for Rajya Sabha, Shri @ LMuruganBJP. Good Luck!! We are grateful to @ Amit Shah and @ JP Nadda to have considered him capable enough.”
Thanking the BJP leaders, Murugan, in a tweet, said: “I am highly grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivaraj Singh Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh BJP president VD Sharma and party cadre for this blessed opportunity to serve the people.”
Since Murugan is not the MP now; he has to be elected for Rajya Sabha within 6 months in order to continue his current role in the government. Earlier, there were rumors that Murugan might be elected from Puducherry.