New Delhi: The scion of a royal household, a former legislator and the chief of a faction urgent for a separate state of “Better Cooch Behar” to be carved out of West Bengal. The Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) Wednesday declared its picks for biennial elections and a bypoll to the Rajya Sabha to be held on 24 July.
From Gujarat, the celebration fielded former Kankrej MLA Babu Desai and Kesridevsinh Jhala, scion of the royal household of the erstwhile princely state of Wankaner. Whereas from West Bengal, the BJP nominated Ananta Rai ‘Maharaj’, who at the moment leads Better Cooch Behar Folks’s Affiliation (GCPA) — a faction urgent for a separate state of ‘Cooch Behar’.
Declaration of the BJP’s candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls comes lower than 24 hours after Ananta Rai ‘Maharaj’ met Union Minister of State (MoS) for Dwelling, Nisith Pramanik, who can be the BJP MP from Cooch Behar. The two are believed to have mentioned quite a lot of points in the course of the hour-long assembly.
Many BJP leaders from the Cooch Behar area, together with Union MoS (Minority Affairs) and Alipurduar MP John Barla, too have been demanding {that a} Union Territory be carved out of northern West Bengal.
This a part of the state is seen as an economically viable area owing to its strong timber and tourism trade.
Nonetheless, the calls for for a separate state to be carved out of West Bengal have been met with stiff opposition from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), which insists that it’ll not permit the division of the state.
As for Kesridevsinh Jhala, who ascended the household throne in February final yr, his father Digvijaysinh was the primary surroundings minister of Unbiased India.
Babu Desai, in the meantime, hails from the Rabari (cattle-rearers) group and served as an MLA from Kankrej in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district from 2007 until 2012.
Six Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal, three from Gujarat and one from Goa will go to polls on 24 July. Apart from, a bypoll is to be held for a Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal for which the BJP has fielded Ananta Rai.
Of the 11 Rajya Sabha in Gujarat, eight are at the moment held by the BJP and the remaining three by the Congress, which has determined to not subject any candidates for the biennial elections to the Higher Home to be held later this month.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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