BJP to back Suri for Rajya Sabha polls

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may decide to lend its support for a member of the rival Congress party Lalit Suri, who is contesting the upcoming biennial Rajya Sabha election from Uttar Pradesh (UP) as an independent candidate in order to save the party from a certain political embarrassment.

Suri's bid to become the official candidate of the Congress party was rejected by Sonia Gandhi, although he is more known in the political circles for being a close confidant of Sonia's assassinated husband, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

With the ruling coalition sailing on a rocking boat in the state in view of open rebellion by some lawmakers of the BJP, the party decided against nominating a third candidate fearing its dissidents may cross vote in order to embarrass the party.

This has effectively meant that the BJP will have 14 spare votes even after ensuring victory of its two nominees from the state, namely two of its national general secretaries Rajnath Singh and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Similarly the alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will be left with 26 spare votes.

Nominations for the November 18 polls closed yesterday in all three states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Jammu and Kashmir. While UP will elect 11 members, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttaranchal are to elect four and one members respectively.

The BJP dissidents have already said that they will not be bound by the party decision and will vote according to their conscience.

With negotiations with representatives of the central leadership of the party still on, the dissidents have not been willing to openly support a nominee of any rival party and the candidature of Suri, chairman of the Bharat Hotels Limited which runs the five-star Intercontinental Hotel in New Delhi, came handy to them.

Sensing that since Suri may not mind opening his purse strings to even buy votes to ensure his success, given the fact that even during normal times money has played a big role in victory of the rich and the famous from Uttar Pradesh through cross-voting in the past, the BJP admits privately that it may be left with no choice but to officially lend its support to Suri's candidature.

"It is for the central leadership of the party to decide whom to transfer our spare votes. We shall respect their decision," Lalji Tandon, leader of the BJP legislative party, has said.

There have been indications that the BJP dissidents may already have decided to support Suri and as such the only way the party can save its face is by lending its support to him since his certain victory if not supported by the BJP will expose their claim that the state's coalition government continues to be in a majority and there is no threat to it.

During the last biennial Rajya Sabha polls, another Congress man and a popular Delhi businessman M.M. Agarwal won as an independent after his claim was denied by the Congress party, allegedly using his money to buy the state lawmakers who openly indulged in cross-voting.

Similarly, journalist Rajiv Shukla, also supposed to be close to Rajiv Gandhi, surprised every one by winning with highest number of votes two years ago, although he contested as a nominee of the Loktantrik Congress Party, which barely had 13 lawmakers in the previous state legislative assembly.

Interestingly, the Congress party has only 25 lawmakers in the 403-member assembly and is not even in a position to ensure victory of its lone candidate, if not supported by some smaller parties.