Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 6 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Sunday decided to field former union minister Ram Jethmalani as the party’s candidate for Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan.
Party sources said Jethmalani had recently written to the BJP president Nitin Gadkari expressing his desire to represent it in the Rajya Sabha.

However, sources said there were divisions in the party as Jethmalani had filed his nomination as an Independent against the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from Lucknow in 2004. He later withdrew from the contest.

Jethmalani had served as a minister in the Vajpayee government but had resigned later.

Sources said that senior leader L.K. Advani was among the leaders in favour of Jethmalani’s candidature.

Though Jethmalani’s candidature triggered some resentment among BJP supporters in Rajasthan who felt the seat should not go to an ‘outsider’, party sources said that legislators would abide by the central leadership’s decision.

A BJP statement said that party president Nitin Gadkari had nominated Jethmalani as the candidate for the second seat in Rajasthan in the biennial elections.

The party has already declared V.P. Singh as its candidate from Rajasthan.

The BJP has 79 legislators in the assembly. BJP sources said that they will need support of more legislators to get Jethmalani elected to the upper house.

The Congress has so far declared three candidates for Rajya Sabha polls and could field one more candidate for the five seats in the state including a vacancy being fileld through a by-election.