New Delhi:

Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pralhad Joshi will contest from the Dharwad Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka for a fifth straight term.

The Dharwad Lok Sabha Constituency has been a BJP stronghold since 1996. Previously held by Congress from 1980 to 1996, BJP’s Vijay Sankeshwar won the seat in 1996, breaking Congress’ winning streak. Since then, BJP has retained the seat, with Pralhad Joshi securing victory between 2004 and 2019.

Here are five facts about Pralhad Joshi:

1. Pralhad Joshi is currently the Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and he also holds the portfolio of coal.
2. He was born on November 27, 1962, in Vijayapura, Karnataka, to Venkatesh Joshi and Malatibai. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from KS Arts College in Hubli. Mr Joshi was a businessman before joining politics.
3. Mr Joshi ventured into politics by leading movements such as hoisting the national flag at Idagah Maidan and the “Save Kashmir Movement” in Hubli from 1992 to 1994. This earned him recognition in the region, and later he became the president of BJP’s Dharwad district unit.
4. The four-time MP contested his first Lok Sabha election in 2004, winning the Dharwad constituency by defeating BS Patil of the Congress by 83,078 votes. In 2009, he won his second term by defeating Kannur Manjunath Channappa of Congress with 1,37,663 votes. In the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls he also retained the seat.
5. Pralhad Joshi also served as the State President of BJP Karnataka from 2014 to 2016.

New Delhi:

Releasing its second list of 72 names for the Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday, the BJP has fielded five Union ministers from various states, including Piyush Goyal, who is set to make his electoral debut. His colleagues on the list are Nitin Gadkari, Anurag Thakur, Pralhad Joshi and Rao Inderjit Singh. 

Mr Goyal, who has been a three-time Rajya Sabha member, has been fielded from the Mumbai North seat, which has been held since 2014 by Gopal Shetty of the BJP. The minister – who holds the commerce and industry, textiles, and food and consumer affairs portfolios – joins health minister Mansukh Mandaviya and junior IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, among others, who will be making their Lok Sabha debut. 

The decision is in line with the BJP’s strategy of making as many ministers as possible contest the Lok Sabha polls and win, instead of making their way into the Cabinet through the Rajya Sabha.

The choice of Nitin Gadkari as the candidate from Nagpur, seen as important also because it is home to the RSS headquarters, should not be surprising because the Road Transport And Highways Minister has been elected from the seat since 2014. Tongues had, however, begun to wag when Mr Gadkari’s name was not in the first list of 195 candidates released on March 2, which had featured other party heavyweights like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray had even asked the minister to join hands with the opposition if he was “being insulted” by the BJP. Mr Gadkari had, however, rejected the INDIA bloc leader’s invite and dubbed it “immature” and “ridiculous”.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur’s name is one of two released for the four seats of Himachal Pradesh. He will contest from Hamirpur, a constituency he has won since 2008 and was also held by his father, Prem Kumar Dhumal, before him. 

Keeping up its focus on the south – where the BJP needs to do well to get its tally up from the 303 Lok Sabha seats it won in 2019 to the 370 it wants this time – the party has fielded Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi from Dharwad in Karnataka. Mr Joshi has been the MP from Dharwad since 2009 and Karnataka had contributed 25 of the 29 seats the BJP had won from the southern states in 2019.

Rao Inderjit Singh, who is the minister of state with independent charge of the Ministry of Statistics and holds other portfolios as well, will contest from Gurgaon. He has held the seat since 2009. 

New Delhi:

Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s nine-point letter on the special session of parliament has drawn an acerbic response from the government. Mrs Gandhi is perhaps “not aware of traditions,” wrote parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi, asserting that the government discusses the agenda with the Opposition only after the session begins.

Mrs Gandhi had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier today, amid a political uproar over the buzz on a change of the country’s name to Bharat.

Underscoring that no agenda has been announced for the special session of parliament starting September 18, she listed nine subjects and demanded discussion on them.

The list included Centre-state relationship, communalism, Manipur situation and border conflict with China.

With hours, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister responded.

“The session has been called following tradition. Perhaps you are not paying attention to tradition. Before calling the Parliament session, there is never any discussion with political parties, nor are the issues discussed. After the calling of the session by the President and before commencement of the session, there is a meeting of the leaders of all the parties in which the people rising in the Parliament are discussed. Issues and work are discussed.” the minister wrote.

The suspense over the agenda has triggered speculation on the country’s name change. The trigger was President Droupadi Murmu’s invite to G20 leaders where she has been described as “President of Bharat”. The next day, a document surfaced that saw PM Modi being described a “Prime Minister of Bharat”.

Today a post on X went viral that said Pakistan may lay claim to the name “India”.

“Pakistan may lay claim to the name “India” if India derecongnises it officially at UN level. –local media. Nationalists in Pakistan have long argued that Pakistan has rights to the name as it refers to the Indus region in Pakistan,” read the post shared by South Asia Index’s X handle.

Top sources, however, said the G-20 summit, to be held this weekend, will be the subject of the special session.

New Delhi:

The government has called for a “special session of Parliament” to be held from September 18 to 22, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi posted on X (formerly Twitter), adding, that there will be five sittings. “Amid Amrit Kaal, looking forward to having a fruitful discussion and debate in Parliament,” he said.

Government sources have, so far, been tight-lipped on possible agendas.

There is speculation the special session is being called to begin the process of shifting from the old to the new Parliament building. So, this session may begin in the old and end in the new. 

Also, it may not be a joint session of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Special Session of Parliament (13th Session of 17th Lok Sabha and 261st Session of Rajya Sabha) is being called from 18th to 22nd September having 5 sittings. Amid Amrit Kaal looking forward to have fruitful discussions and debate in Parliament. pic.twitter.com/b3PIRngpOs

— Pralhad Joshi (@JoshiPralhad) August 31, 2023

Government sources have, though, also said the agenda is likely to include Amrit Kaal celebrations and India as a ‘developed nation’. There is no hint of any important bill that will be passed.

The timing of the special session is interesting, though, as it coincides with the mega opposition bloc I.N.D.I.A’s third meeting in Mumbai. The 28-party grouping has declared its intention to bring down the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in next year’s general election.

READ |INDIA Bloc Has Several Choices For PM Post, BJP Has One: Uddhav Thackeray

The special session will also take place amid several major developments, including India having just hosted the G20 Summit in Delhi; this will be in the national capital between September 8 and 10.

In addition, the session will also take place after the Supreme Court was told the government is open to the conduct of elections in Jammu and Kashmir. During the court’s hearing on multiple petitions challenging the government’s scrapping of Article 370 in J&K, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, said the decision on when to hold elections in the former state lay in the hands of central and state poll bodies.

READ | Kapil Sibal, Centre’s Lawyer In Heated Argument During Article 370 Hearing

However, on a timeline for restoration of statehood to J&K – a question posed by the court on Wednesday, Mr Mehta said the government is “unable to give an exact time period for conversion”.

What Was The Last Parliament Session?

The last session of Parliament was the Monsoon Session, which began on July 20 and wrapped up on August 12; 23 bills were passed by the government on that occasion. The session was marked by several protests from the opposition on a number of issues, including the violence in Manipur and ruckus over the contentious Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023.

Most significantly, the session also witnessed a dramatic, three-day-long debate on a ‘no confidence’ motion introduced by the Congress and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi ruling in Telangana.

READ | Monsoon Session Ends: Political Tone Set For 2024, Big Ticket Bills Passed

Several top leaders, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, took on the government, for whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the fightback, setting the tone for the big Lok Sabha battle of 2024.