JD (U) to nominate former Bihar minister Sanjay Jha for Feb 27 Rajya Sabha polls

The Janata Dal-United (JD-U) is set to nominate the party’s national general secretary and former Bihar minister Sanjay Jha for the Rajya Sabha election scheduled for February 27, a top party functionary confirmed.

Jha, a close associate of chief minister JD-U president Nitish Kumar, is likely to file his nomination papers on Wednesday. However, an official announcement is yet to be made.

A member of the Bihar legislative council since 2019, Jha served as the minister of water resource from 2019 till Jan 28, 2024, when the JD-U walked out of the GA.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the JD-U’s alliance partner, had already named Bhim Singh and Dharamsheela Gupta, president of the party’s women cell, as their candidates.

Out of the half-a-dozen seats, for which filing of nomination papers would come to a close on February 15, three each are held by the state’s ruling NDA and the opposition Mahagathbandhan or the Grand Alliance (GA).

The MPs whose terms are ending include Vashishth Narayan Singh and Aneel Hegde (JDU), Sushil Kumar Modi (BJP), Manoj Kumar Jha and Ashfaq Karim (RJD) and state Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh.

The NDA has a total strength of 131 MLAs while the GA has 112 MLAs.