Jai Prakash Nishad is BJP nominee for Rajya Sabha

LUCKNOW: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday named former BS Pm in is terJai Prakash Nishad, who had joined the BJP ahead of the 2018 Lok Sabha by-polls as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.

The RS by-poll, required due to the demise of Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Beni Prasad Verma, would be held on August 24.

Jai Prakash is currently the party vice president of Gorakhpur region, considered the political turf of UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

The announcement is being viewed as party’s continued focus on backward Nishads, the community who account for nearly 20 per cent of the electorate in Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat which Yogi Adityanath represented uninterrupted from 1998 till 2014 Lok Sabha polls and later quit the seat after becoming Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

“We welcome the announcement. The party has chosen a worthy face for being its RS nominee. Moreover, it also shows how the party cares for all the sections of the society,” said Satyendra Sinha, BJP vice president of Gorakhpur region.

It was in 2018 Lok Sabha by-polls for Gorakhpur that BJP imported Jai Prakash, who had been a minister of state in Mayawati government between 2007 to 2012 and though the BJP surprisingly lost the Gorakhpur seat in by-polls, Nishad continued to rise within the party.

He was named a member of the Purvanchal Vikas Board set up by the government and has now been rewarded with a RS nomination.

JAI PRAKASH IS CURRENTLY THE PARTY VICE PRESIDENT OF GORAKHPUR REGION