Brainstorming on election of Dy chairman of the Rajya Sabha; it might be deferred

New Delhi, July 10: The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have discussed the strategy that how to go about with the election of Deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha and in all likelihood if the NDA fails to find the right number to get elected its candidate, it might defer elections for the next session of Parliament. The meeting took place at the residence of senior BJP leader and Union minister Arun Jaitley.

Senior BJP leaders including national president of the party Amit Shah has joined the meeting. Actually, the united Opposition wants to field Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy as the candidate for the post of deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha but the BJP wants to get its candidate elected for the post. But if the NDA fails to manage right number it might seek to defer it till the next session. The BJP wants its man to be appointed as the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha and does not want opposition leader at any cost.

Sources informed that in the first round of meeting besides Arun Jaitley, senior BJP leaders like Piyush Goyal, Anant Kumar and Amit Shah were present but in the second round of the meeting in the evening besides these leaders Sushma Swaraj and Suresh Prabhu too joined. Nitin Gadkari too was invited for the meeting but he could not attend as he was informed late.

As per the BJP sources, Prime Minister Narendra Mmodi clearly said in an earlier meeting that the post of deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha should be given to the NDA partner and the BJP zeroed in on the name of Shiromani Akali Dal leader Naresh Gujarat.

Sources said that there is no constitutional binding on the timing of conducting of its election. The only binding is that notification should not have been issued as once notification is issued it can't be deferred.