Nominated members whose terms are ending are Swapan Das Gupta, Roopa Ganguly, Dr Subramanian Swamy and others.
New Delhi: Seventy-five Rajya Sabha (RS) members, including nominated members, will retire from the House this year, from the period that will start from April and go on till August.
The six nominated members whose terms are going to end in April are Swapan Das Gupta, Roopa Ganguly, Dr Subramanian Swamy, Narendra Jadhav, Mary Kom and Dr Suresh Gopi.
The chances of either Ganguly or Swamy being given renomination by the President, appears “remote”, BJP leaders told The Sunday Guardian. The terms of the nominated members, who became members of the House on 3 April 2016, end on 24 April.
Apart from these, the other prominent members whose tenures are coming to an end in April are former Union ministers Anand Sharma (Himachal Pradesh), A.K. Antony (Kerala), Assam Congress leader Ripun Bora, Partap Singh Bajwa, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Naresh Gujraj (all from Punjab), among others. In all, 19 members will be retiring from the Rajya Sabha in April.
In May, the term of nominated member Sambhaji Chhatrapati will end. The House will say farewell to 20 of its members in June, including former Union ministers Suresh Prabhu and M.J. Akbar. The other members who will cease to exist as House members by the end of June are Ram Vichar Netam, Chhaya Verma (both Chhattisgarh), Vivek Tankha, Jai Ram Ramesh and present finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
In July, 33 members will retire. This number includes former Union minister K.J. Alphons, Kapil Sibal, P. Chidambaram, Ambika Soni, Praful Patel, current Union minister Piyush Goyal, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP leader Syed Zafar Islam, Om Prakash Mathur, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, RJD leader Misa Bharti and senior Janata Dal (United ) leader Ram Chandra Prasad Singh.
In August, two members, senior BJP leader Dushyant Gautam and media personality Dr Subhash Chandra, will retire.
Whether any of the retiring members, especially those from the Congress, are renominated will depend on the party’s performance in the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
Five vacancies that will be created in April will be from Punjab, three from Kerala, two from Assam, while one each in Himachal Pradesh, Tripura and Nagaland. Similarly, six members from Tamil Nadu, four from Andhra Pradesh, three each from Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka and two each from Telangana and Chhattisgarh will be retiring. The Congress can send at least two candidates from Chhattisgarh and one from Madhya Pradesh.
In July, the maximum number of 11 members will be retiring from Uttar Pradesh, six from Maharashtra, four each from Bihar and Rajasthan, three from Odisha, two from Punjab and Jharkhand, while one member from Uttarakhand will be retiring.