Upendra Kushwaha and Manan Mishra filed the nominations of Rajya Sabha.

Upendra Kushwaha and Manan Mishra filed the nominations of Rajya Sabha.

Patna, August 21: Upendra Kushwaha, the national president of Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) and BJP leader Manan Kumar Mishra filed the nomination for the Rajya Sabha election on Wednesday.

These two leaders reached the Bihar assembly and filed the nominations in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and other senior leaders of JD (U) and BJP.

Given the current strength of NDA in Bihar, it is expected that these two leaders will win the Rajya Sabha election.

The selection of Upendra Kushwaha was finalized as an NDA for the Rajya Sabha a few days while the BJP central leadership Manan Kumar Mishra’s name was selected on Tuesday evening.

Upendra Kushwaha, who contested the Lok Sabha election from Karakat as an NDA candidate, finished in third place. The Karakat seat was won by Rajaram Kushwaha of CPI-ML, with independent candidate and prominent Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh playing a crucial role in Upendra Kushwaha’s defeat by capturing a significant portion of the upper-caste votes, traditionally aligned with BJP. Pawan Singh came in second.

Manan Kumar Mishra is a surprise pick for many of the NDA leaders especially within BJP. BJP central leadership selected Mishra after deliberating over 35 potential candidates from Bihar, including prominent figures like Rituraj Sinha, Nikhil Anand, Arvind Kumar Singh, Prem Ranjan Patel and former union minister Raj Kumar Singh. 

A prominent lawyer of Patna High Court, Manan Mishra has a long association with the BJP and RSS. He is from Gopalganj and an alumnus of Patna University.

Also Read: Manan Mishra will be the candidate of the BJP for Rajya Sabha.

Sources have said that the selection of Mishra was aimed at appeasing the Brahmin community in Bihar. During the Lok Sabha election, BJP refused the ticket to former union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey and gave the ticket to Mithilesh Tiwari to contest the Buxar seat, which, Tiwari lost to RJD candidate Sudhakar Singh, partly due to the Brahmin vote shifting towards the RJD.

EOM.