Ahmed, Verma elected to Rajya Sabha unopposed
Jharkhand assembly secretary Syed Javed Haider on Thursday declared Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Pradeep Verma and INDIA bloc candidate Sarfaraz Ahmed elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha a week before the scheduled election.
On March 11, Verma and Ahmed filed their nominations for the Rajya Sabha elections.
On Thursday, returning officer Haider handed them the certificates of election after declaring them winners. “Since only two candidates were in the fray for the two Rajya Sabha seats in Jharkhand, they were declared winner unopposed,” Haider told a news agency.
After receiving the certificate, Verma thanked the BJP leadership for entrusting him with the responsibility.
“The party has given big responsibility to a small-time worker like me. I thank our senior leaders for this. I would be trying to become the voice of Jharkhand in the Upper House of Parliament,” said Verma.
The 72-year-old Ahmed is a former Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA from the Gandey assembly constituency. In January, he resigned amid political turbulence after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started action against former chief minister Hemant Soren in a land scam in December last year.
Earlier, Ahmed was a Member of Parliament (MP) and state president of the Congress in United Bihar and also held the position of national secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). He joined JMM before the 2019 assembly elections.
The 52-year-old Verma is the BJP state general secretary and has a long-standing association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The tenure of the current Rajya Sabha MPs from the state, Samir Oraon of the BJP and Dhiraj Prasad Sahu of the Congress, is set to end on May 3.
Based on the numerical strength of the state assembly, comprising 81 members, candidates of both the ruling alliance and the opposition unopposed election were already expected.
Jharkhand currently has six Rajya Sabha seats. Apart from Sahu and Oraon, the other MPs include BJP’s Aditya Sahu and Deepak Prakash and JMM’s Shibu Soren and Mahua Maji.
Meanwhile, the JMM has alleged that BJP’s newlyelected Rajya Sabha member hid his assets in his affidavit filed before the Election Commission.
The party spokesperson, Supriyo Bhattacharya, organising a press conference, stated that the JMM would bring the concealment of assets by Verma before the Election Commission after two vacancies are filled.
“Verma did not mention his farmhouse in Angada, flats in Khelgaon and Pandra, plot in Argora and Dhanbad, besides a palatial house in his native town of Azamgarh in UP. He also did not mention his 40 per cent partnership in a development agreement or his association with NGOs,” Bhattacharya said, sharing Verma’s property details.
Bhattacharya added, “The BJP leader Verma, who came to Ranchi in 2000 as an employee of Sarla Birla School, amassed property in such a way that he has seven bank accounts. To acquire property, he did not provide proper addresses and his father’s name.”
Verma or other BJP leaders could not be contacted for his comment on the matter.