New Delhi: With the 2024 Lok Sabha election just a year away, many senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are fishing for a seat to contest from and making efforts to gauge the mood of voters.
Three such leaders hoping to be in the fray are Rajya Sabha MPs — external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, who is targeting one of Bangalore’s Lok Sabha seats, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who is eyeing Odisha’s Dhenkanal constituency, and G.V.L Narasimha Rao, who is hoping to fight from Vizag seat.
A Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat, Jaishankar has recently started speaking more on politics and attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi last month for his comments on China.
“I am troubled as a citizen of India when I see somebody drooling over China and being dismissive about India,” Jaishankar had said. “You know what’s the word that comes to his (Rahul’s) mind when he talks of China, ‘harmony’. His one-word description of China is harmony; his one-word description of India is discord.”
At the same time, Jaishankar has started spending more time in Karnataka, visiting Udupi and Belagavi and, particularly, capital Bangalore.
On 26 March, he participated in a meet-and-greet event in the city’s popular Cubbon Park and interacted with the youth and daily walkers, along with BJP’s Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya and Bangalore Central MP P.C.Mohan.
He also participated in a BJP Yuva Morcha event on 24 March where, commenting on the ‘World Happiness Index’, he said: “You should tell everyone to come to Bangalore which is the world’s happiest place, particularly on a Friday night.”
A BJP functionary from Karnataka told ThePrint: “He (Jaishankar) is a Tamil Brahmin and has done schooling from Bangalore; so, he has an old connection with the city. He is testing the waters to fight the Lok Sabha polls.”
“Bangalore Central is held by Mohan, Bangalore South by Surya, Bangalore North by BJP’s Sadanand Gowda and Bangalore Rural by the Congress. Jaishankar can fight from any of the BJP’s three seats. With the educated electorate, he will have no problem in winning. However, all decisions will be taken at the last minute. What he can do now is familiarise himself with the local voters,” the functionary added.
Jaishankar has, in fact, been visiting Karnataka since 2022, taking part in cultural and intellectual events and even held a food tour in Bangalore in August. In April, he visited Belagavi and Dharwad to attend events, while in August last year, he promised to raise with the US the issue of opening a consulate in the city.
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Dharmendra Pradhan
A prominent leader of Odisha and hailing from the state’s Talcher town in Angul district, Pradhan is spending a considerable amount of time in Dhenkanal Lok Sabha constituency.
The Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh visited there as recently as February along with Union home minister Amit Shah for a Lok Sabha pravas programme — an exercise that was undertaken in the state last year as well.
Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnav, Mansukh Mandaviya and Pralhad Joshi have also toured the constituency — which is currently held by the state’s ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) — with Pradhan in recent months.
Pradhan has himself confirmed that he would fight the Lok Sabha polls from Odisha, according to a PTI report.
The minister won his first Lok Sabha election from Odisha’s Deogarh in 2004, which now comes under Sambalpur constituency (post-delimitation) which the BJP currently holds and where it has a strong base.
According to BJP insiders, the party is preparing to field Pradhan from either Sambalpur or Dhenkanal and Pradhan’s recent activity shows he is gauging the mood of the public.
Jayanarayan Mishra, leader of the opposition in Odisha, told ThePrint: “Pradhan is a senior BJP leader, and he has shown interest in contesting the polls. The party will take a call at the right time.”
Odisha BJP vice-president Nauri Nayak said: “Pradhan is preparing to fight the election from Dhenkanal but partymen are asking him to fight from Sambalpur as it’s a safe seat. The BJP has three MLAs from there and also the sitting MP.”
Pradhan’s wife Mridula has also been visiting panchayats in Angul and Dhenkanal, and has been doing social service such as organising health camps and participating in women’s wing programmes.
Earlier this year, Pradhan urged the Centre for a special package for development of tourism infrastructure in Dhenkanal and Sambalpur.
Keeping the Lok Sabha polls in mind, the BJD last month deployed Pranab Prakash Das — believed to be number two to Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik — as observer for the districts of Dhenkanal, Angul, Sambalpur and Keonjhar.
According to a BJP leader, the “BJD’s appointment of Das as observer is a clear signal to check Pradhan in these districts. Das is a three-time MLA (Jajpur) and is known to have good organisational capabilities”.
GVL Narasimha Rao
Another hot Lok Sabha seat is Andhra Pradesh’s Vizag from where two BJP leaders are preparing ground for next year’s election.
One is party general secretary Daggubati Purandeswari, who won the seat in 2009 as Congress candidate and became a minister in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. After joining the BJP, she contested unsuccessfully from Rajampet in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. She again fought from Vizag in the 2019 general election but lost poorly.
The other leader eyeing Vizag is GVL Narasimha Rao, who hails from Andhra’s Narasaraopet and whose Rajya Sabha term will expire before 2024. Rao represents Uttar Pradesh in Upper House of Parliament.
He confirmed to ThePrint that he was “preparing to fight from Vizag” but added that “ultimately the party will decide who will fight the seat”.
Rao has been visiting the constituency to participate in local organisational activities. He has also been active in Parliament, asking questions about the city’s metro rail project. In February, he asked the steel ministry how the Vizag steel plant would cope with large-scale retirement of employees, while in the winter session of Parliament last December, he sought the timely completion of a 400-bed ESI Hospital in the city. He has also proposed that Vizag can be developed as a major IT destination.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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