Jammu, Nov 14: With Election Commission of India (ECI) likely to issue notification for the four vacant seats of the Rajya Sabha, political lobbying has commenced in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The budget session of the Parliament is scheduled to start from 30th of November and the ECI is most likely to issue notification for holding elections to fill the four vacant seats of the Rajya Sabha before the start of the budget session”, highly placed sources informed Rising Kashmir.
Sources said that former Chief Minister of J&K and NC Patron, Dr Farooq Abdullah, is almost certain to go to the Upper House, while hectic lobbying has been going on in the BJP.
With 28 MLAs, the BJP is set to have atleast one member to go to the Rajya Sabha from Jammu. However, many senior leaders of the BJP are in fray to secure a seat for the upper house of the Parliament.
Former Deputy Chief Ministers in the BJP-PDP coalition government, Kavinder Gupta and Dr Nirmal Singh and the former J&K BJP President, Ravinder Raina are the front runners from BJP to go to the Rajya Sabha.
Both Kavinder Gupta and Dr Nirmal Singh were denied tickets by the BJP in the recently concluded Assembly elections in the J&K UT and were assured some better positions by the party high command, sources said.
BJP performed its all time best in the Assembly elections in J&K by winning 29 seats, all in Jammu region. In its previous best performance, the BJP won 25 Assembly seats in the 2014 Assembly elections.
“Although, Ravinder Raina lost his own seat of Nowshera but the BJP performed its all time best in the J&K Assembly elections in 2024 winning 29 seats,” sources said, while adding, “Raina may also be rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat”.
All the 4 Rajya seats of J&K fell vacant in 2018, six years back, sometime after BJP withdrew its support from the PDP. Since then, all the 4 seats have been lying vacant as there was no Assembly in place.
