The BJP has dropped Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and seven other sitting Rajya Sabha MPs from its latest list of nominees for Uttar Pradesh.
The party announced eight candidates for the October 16 Rajya Sabha elections, without retaining any of its outgoing members from the state. Puri and BL Verma are among those left out, while Arun Singh, Seema Dwivedi, Neeraj Shekhar, Brij Lal and Geeta Shakya also do not feature.
The new nominees are Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar.
The list includes three OBC candidates, two Scheduled Caste candidates and three from the general category. Two nominees are women.
The BJP is expected to win eight of the 10 seats based on its strength in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, while the Samajwadi Party is likely to secure two.
Puri’s exclusion has also triggered speculation over a possible Union Cabinet reshuffle ahead of the end of his Rajya Sabha term in November.