India / BJP leader and Bihar's ex-Dy CM Sushil Modi elected to Rajya Sabha unopposed

Patna: Former Bihar Deputy CM and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha on Monday. He has been elected from the seat which was lying vacant since the demise of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) patriarch Ram Vilas Paswan.

Sushil Modi was named as the BJP candidate for the by-election to the Rajya Sabha seat from Bihar last week. His election to the Upper House was touted as a mere formality since the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has majority in the Bihar Legislative Assembly.

The election was scheduled to be held on December 14 but Sushil Modi was declared elected unopposed on the last date for withdrawal of nomination papers.

It should be noted that in addition to Modi, a lone Independent candidate, Shyam Nandan Prasad, had also filed his nomination papers which were rejected during scrutiny.

Prasad's papers were not supported by at least 10 members of the 243-strong Assembly as proposers, which is mandatory, poll officials said.

Sushil Modi was handed over his certificate in the presence of a host of dignitaries, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, with whom he is known to enjoy an excellent rapport, his successors as Deputy Chief Minister Tar Kishore Prasad and Renu Devi and state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal.

The Rajya Sabha seat to which Modi was elected fell vacant after the death of LJP founder and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.

Sushil Modi, 68, became an RSS worker and joined active politics only in the mid-1980s. He first became Deputy CM in 2005, when Nitish came to power, and retained the post since then, except when Jitan Ram Manjhi was Chief Minister between 2014 and 2015 and when the JD(U) was with the RJD in 2015-2017.