The BJP will soon have no Muslim MPs in either house of the parliament. The ruling party has three parliamentarians in the Rajya Sabha and none in the lower house. However, with the tenure of the three upper house representatives coming to an end and the party not having nominated any Muslim candidate for the upcoming elections, BJP may not have any Muslim MPs.
The three BJP MPs in the Rajya Sabha -- Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Syed Zafar Islam, and MJ Akbar -- are completing their tenures soon but haven't been renominated. The party has announced 22 candidates for the upper house elections to be held on June 10, and none of them is a Muslim.
Mr Naqvi, who is the Minority Affairs Minister, will lose his cabinet seat if he doesn't get elected as an MP in the six months after his tenure gets over on July 7. Sources say he might be BJP's candidate in the byelections for the Rampur Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
The Rampur Lok Sabha seat was vacated by Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan who has been elected to the legislative assembly. The by-poll on Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats will be held on June 23.
Mr Islam completes his term on July 4 and Mr Akbar on June 29.
The President has the authority to nominate 12 MPs to Rajya Sabha and currently, there are seven vacancies in the nominated category. The BJP might try to get a prominent Muslim leader nominated to the upper house through this route.
The BJP had contested six Muslim candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections but all of them lost. The NDA also has just one Muslim MP -- Lok Janshakti Party's Mehboob Ali Kaiser from the Khagaria Lok Sabha constituency.
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