Dehradun: The BJP’s central leadership surprised party workers in Uttarakhand on Sunday by choosing Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s former public relations officer and lesser-known Dalit leader Dinesh Arya as its Rajya Sabha candidate from the state.
According to the Election Commission of India’s notification, polling for the state’s lone Rajya Sabha seat falling vacant will be held on October 16. Sitting member Naresh Bansal’s term ends on November 25.
The announcement came on Sunday afternoon, a day after the party concluded a series of state-level organisational meetings led by newly appointed state in-charge Ram Madhav.
A senior state BJP organisation secretary in Dehradun said even senior leaders were taken aback by the decision and had no inkling that Arya’s name was under consideration.
“Arya, a close aide of Dhami, had a very low profile in the organisation.
His highest rise in the politics of Uttarakhand was as president of Nainital District unit of the party. He also served as PRO of chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in 2022,” the secretary said.
Arya currently holds a post carrying minister of state rank in Uttarakhand’s water resources department. The secretary said several prominent names had been included in the panel sent by the state leadership.
Arya had also sought the party ticket from the Nainital Assembly constituency in the 2022 state elections.
The BJP, however, nominated Sarita Arya.
State BJP leaders have welcomed the nomination of Arya, a Dalit leader from Haldwani in Nainital district, where a controversy erupted over an alleged “purification ritual” after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge addressed a rally in August.
Kharge later raised the issue during Parliament’s monsoon session, alleging that BJP workers had performed the ritual at the Haldwani ground after his rally because he was a Dalit.
Arya is expected to win comfortably, given the BJP’s strength of more than two-thirds in the state Assembly.
The terms of 10 Rajya Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh also end on November 25.
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