Mumbai Blasts Lawyer, Ex Foreign Secretary Among 4 To Get Rajya Sabha Pass

Top lawyer Ujjwal Nikam and former Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla are among the four people President Droupadi Murmu has nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Besides Mr Nikam and Mr Shringla, the President has nominated social worker C Sadanandan Master and historian Meenakshi Jain to the Upper House of Parliament.

A gazette notification said the new nominations follow the retirement of previously nominated members. The President can nominate up to 12 members to the Rajya Sabha and these nominees must be from the fields of literature, science, art and social service. Four seats in the Upper House were vacant.

Seventy-two-year-old Ujjwal Nikam has worked as a special public prosecutor on key terrorism cases such as the 1993 Mumbai blasts and the 26/11 attacks. He has also worked on the high-profile murder cases of music mogul Gulshan Kumar and BJP stalwart Pramod Mahajan. In the Lok Sabha election last year, the BJP had fielded Mr Nikam from the Mumbai North Central seat, but he lost to Congress's Varsha Gaikwad. Mr Nikam was awarded the Padma Shri in 2016.

Mr Shringla served as the Foreign Secretary between January 2020 and April 2022. He was also the Chief Coordinator of the G20 Summit that India hosted in 2023. Earlier, he served as India's Ambassador to the US and as High Commissioner to Bangladesh.

C Sadanandan Master is an educator and activist from Kerala whose legs were hacked off three decades ago in an attack by CPM workers. He contested the 2016 Kerala polls from Kuthuparamba, but finished third.

Meenakshi Jain is a political scientist and historian who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020 for her contribution to the field of education. She has earlier served as a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the four Rajya Sabha nominees. He said Mr Nikam's devotion to the legal field and the Constitution is exemplary. Praising C Sadanandan Master, he said his life is the epitome of courage and refusal to bow to injustice and wished him the best. Mr Shringla, he said, excelled as a diplomat, intellectual and strategic thinker and has made key contributions to India's foreign policy. Dr Meenakshi Jain, the Prime Minister said in a post, has distinguished herself as a researcher and historian and her work has enriched academic discourse. 

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