Without any opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party's three nominees for the Gujarat-based Rajya Sabha seats have all been declared elected. For the three seats, the opposition parties did not file any candidates. Due to the BJP's 156-seat advantage in the 182-member Gujarat legislative assembly, it was a given that it would win all three seats.
In a press release from the assistant election officer and deputy secretary of the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha, it was announced that S Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs, Kesridevsinh Zala, and Babubhai Desai had been elected without opposition to the upper chamber of parliament from Gujarat. All three had filed their nominations earlier this month. Flanked by CM Bhupendra Patel, state BJP president C R Paatil and other leaders, S Jaishankar had submitted his nomination papers to returning officer Rita Mehta at the Vidhan Sabha complex on July 10.
Jaishankar thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP leadership, the MLAs, and the people of Gujarat for providing him another opportunity to represent the state in the upper chamber of Parliament in a statement to the media following the filing of his papers.
Subsequently, on May 12, the BJP announced the names of Kesridevsinh Zala and Babubhai Desai as its remaining two candidates.
Zala is the son of the late Congress leader and former Union environment minister Digvijaysinh Zala. He belongs to the royal Rajput family of Vankaner from Saurashtra and has been active in the BJP for many years.
Desai is a former MLA of Kankrej ( 2007 to 2012) in Banaskantha district of North Gujarat and comes from the Maldhari (cattle rearing) community. The ruling BJP has repeated Jaishankar as its candidate, while Zala and Desai replace Dinesh Anavadiya and Jugalsinh Thakor, whose terms as Rajya Sabha MPs have ended.