BJP Likely To Send Manoj Sinha To Rajya Sabha From Arun Jaitley’s Seat: Sources

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is considering to send Manoj Sinha from Arun Jaitley seat that fell vacant after his death, according to sources. Sinha, who was the minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet during its first tenure, had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Ghazipur.

On September 26, the Election Commission had announced that by-elections to the two Rajya Sabha seats that fell vacant after the deaths of Arun Jaitley and Ram Jethmalani will be held on October 16. While Jaitley represented Uttar Pradesh, Ram jethmalami was a member of the upper house from Bihar.

Jaitley's Rajya Sabha term, who passed away on August 24, was supposed to end on April 2024. Sinha got 4.46 lakh votes as compared to BSP's Ansari who received 5.66 lakh votes. He had won this seat in 2014 by a margin of 32,452 votes.

Fondly called “Vikas Purush” by his followers, this reserved and introvert member of the Modi government, took charge of the high-profile telecom portfolio from Ravi Shankar Prasad in 2016 at a time when the industry was rolling up its sleeves for a mega spectrum sale.

Sinha spent the next almost three years steering the hyper-competitive industry that was hemorrhaging on financial stress. The former Telecom Minister, Sinha made focused interventions to stabilise the industry including a crackdown on call drops (service quality issues are a pain point for consumers), measures for ease of doing business, and finalising a revival package for the debt-ridden telecom sector.