Hardeep Puri, 7 other sitting MPs dropped from BJP's Rajya Sabha poll list for UP
The BJP sprang a surprise on Monday by leaving Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and BL Verma out of its Rajya Sabha nominations from Uttar Pradesh, naming eight candidates without retaining any of its outgoing MPs.
The party has fielded Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar for the October 16 elections.
Apart from Puri and Verma, Arun Singh, Seema Dwivedi, Neeraj Shekhar, Brij Lal and Geeta Shakya do not figure on the list. Dinesh Sharma, who previously held a Rajya Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh, is now the Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Polling will be held for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in the state on October 16. The BJP is expected to win eight seats while the Samajwadi Party is expected to win the rest.
The list includes three OBC candidates, two Scheduled Caste candidates and three upper-caste candidates. Two nominees are women.
The OBC representation covers the Lodhi, Pal and Kurmi communities, while the upper-caste nominees include two Brahmins and one Rajput.
The two women are former Barabanki MP Priyanka Singh Rawat and Shruti Gangwar, daughter of Jharkhand Governor Santosh Gangwar. Rawat won the Barabanki Lok Sabha seat in 2014, defeating Congress veteran PL Punia.
Vidyasagar Sonkar, a Dalit leader from eastern Uttar Pradesh, is a former Lok Sabha MP and MLC who has also served as a BJP general secretary.ORGANISATIONAL LEADERS GET TICKETS
The BJP has also nominated leaders with organisational experience, including Prakash Pal and Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan.
Pal, who belongs to the OBC Pal community, has previously headed the party’s Kanpur-Bundelkhand organisational region. Chauhan was appointed state general secretary in the June 2026 reshuffle and given charge of the Western Uttar Pradesh organisational region in August.
The selections combine caste representation and organisational experience as the BJP prepares for the Assembly polls in 2027.- Ends
Himanshu Shekhar is a journalist working as a Senior Editor for IndiaToday.in. He writes on cricket, politics and social issues. A big Peter Roebuck fan, Himanshu has covered two cricket World Cups in his career that began in 2006. He had stints with Zee, ESPN, Times Internet and MSN before joining the India Today Group.
